Moon's Melody
by YearOfTheKitty
Summary: AU. Sora, a runaway orphan, is kidnapped by a mysterious figure from his past. He is soon caught up in a war older than anyone, and both sides want him... Will he be the same person when it's over? Or even human? Werewolf and vampire fic.
1. Prayer Of The Refugee

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

Warm yourself by the fire, son

And the morning will come soon

I'll tell you stories of a better time

In a place that we once knew

The sun was setting, painting the sky brilliant shades of red and orange. To the east, a few early stars twinkled like spots of glitter carelessly spilled by a child's hand. The streets were deserted of people, most shut tight in their homes sharing dinner with families. The thick heat of early summer lessened with every inch the sun sank below the horizon.

A burst of raucous laughter shattered the evening tranquility. The many voices grew louder and louder as a group of nine children strolled down the sidewalk, laughing and joking with each other.

"It wasn't all that bad!" one boy with eyes bluer than the sea protested in response to something said by a younger boy with sandy-blond hair.

"It was even worse than that," a girl with eyes the same shade of blue groaned, shaking her head so that her auburn hair shook over her face. "I never want to even think about it ever again."

"You've got no stomach, Kairi," a boy carrying a blitzball under his arm laughed. "You've gotta loosen up, ya?"

"I think it's gross to, Kai," another girl with brown hair reassured her friend. "They're just being… guys."

"I thought it was hilarious," the youngest girl objected. "And I'm a girl!"

"You've been corrupted by their influence from a young age," Kairi told her sadly. "I'm afraid there's no hope."

Before we packed our bags

And left all this behind us in the dust

We had a place that we could call home

And a life no one could touch

"It's getting late, guys," the tallest boy with long, silver-white hair broke in. "We should probably head for home."

"I guess you're right," Kairi sighed.

"Let's get together tomorrow, okay?" the blue-eyed boy half-questioned.

"Ugh, Olette's dragging us to the mall," a boy with wavy blond hair groaned, rolling his eyes. "How about you go with her instead of me?"

"I'm taking Pence and Riku, too," the brown-haired girl, Olette, chirped brightly. The tall one with silver hair and a so-far silent boy moaned, shoulders sagging in defeat.

"Sorry, I guess we'll see you around, Sora," Kairi shrugged.

"…it's okay. See ya, Kairi," Sora forced on a smile.

The rest of them made their own farewells, and the group disintegrated down various streets, each to their own home. Soon, only Sora was left, staring after where his friends had disappeared from forlornly. He didn't want to go home. Home was… bad, to put it simply. Very, very bad.

Don't hold me up, now

I can stand my own ground

I don't need your help, now

You won't let me down, down, down

Hanging out with the gang, though, that was fun. The guys—Hayner, Pence, Riku, Tidus, and Wakka—always made him forget how much time he'd spent fooling around with them. Kairi, Selphie, and Olette weren't all that bad, either, though in a different way. As it was, even school was better than home, since he got to see most of his friends. (Except for Tidus and Selphie, who were a grade behind, and Riku, who was a grade ahead.)

Then again, Sora was willing to bet that _jail_ was better than home, for the simple reason that home was nowhere.

We are the angry and the desperate

The hungry and the cold

We are the ones who kept quiet

And always did what we were told

Sora sighed and turned to leave, wondering where he'd go tonight. He'd slept in the park last night, which was never a fun experience due to muggers and druggies, so he wouldn't go back there again. Unpredictability: that was the key. If he fell into a pattern, some well-meaning person might force him back to the orphanage which he had sworn never to return to.

He had lived at the orphanage in a town very near this one, one of the last orphanages in all of Destiny Islands due to the new foster-care program. Sora had been sent there at the age of six, when his parents had been killed under mysterious circumstances.

They had been found together in the park the morning after they had gone to the movies, leaving the little Sora in the care of their neighbors. (Yet another reason to dislike sleeping in parks.) No one would tell Sora how they had died, which made his fifteen-year-old self suspect that it was particularly gruesome.

So he'd lived at the orphanage for seven years. At first, he'd been left pretty much alone. He had soon come to realize that the orphanage was not the happy place it had seemed on the surface. Things went on behind the scenes, things that happened in back rooms when no one was around, things that even the adults in charge sometimes did. Abuse in every single sense of the word.

But we've been sweating while you've slept so calm

In the safety of your home

We've been pulling up the nails that hold up

Everything you've known

_That leaves the boatyard, then,_ he decided with another sigh, jerking his thoughts back to the problem at hand. The boatyard was a place where damaged boats were kept for repairs down by the shore. Parts of it stored ships too far gone to be any use anymore, and these parts were rarely traversed by the workers except to get spare parts during the day, and never at night. Sora slipped through the streets and down to the shoreline, on alert for anyone who might be watching.

Don't hold me up, now

I can stand my own ground

I don't need your help, now

You won't let me down, down, down

He wiggled easily through a rusted gap in the chain-link fence around the yard's perimeter. He'd done this before. There was a single night guard who mostly slept in the boathouse, bottle in hand and ancient guard dog snoring alongside him.

He dodged through the shadows among the hulls of barnacle-crusted boats listing on their sides, like birds with broken wings, waiting to be set free to fly again. The blue-eyed boy finally found a boat that was in such a state of disrepair that it looked ready to collapse at the slightest breeze, crusted over with mold and rust. Letters that had once been bright had faded away. After a moment of puzzling, Sora was able to decipher the words Queen Anne. He gratefully clambered through a hole in her hull and into the recesses of the dead ship.

There he curled up, among the bugs and mildew, and slept as easily as if it were the finest of feather beds. He was used to this routine. It had been going on for the last two years of his life, ever since he had escaped from the orphanage.

So open your eyes, child

And let's be on our way

Broken windows and ashes

Are guiding the way

His friends all thought that he still lived there. He hadn't told them when he'd been forced to flee, hadn't asked for help. He was ashamed of the life he led, and he didn't want to be a burden on anyone. Besides, if he asked his friends for help, they would undoubtedly tell their parents, who would, in turn, contact the orphanage and send him back. He wouldn't go back. Not now. Not ever.

Even if he was sent to a fostering program, he didn't want to leave his friends. After living for so long without any kind of parental authority, the thought of an adult knowing where he was all the time and telling him what he could and couldn't do sent a feeling similar to claustrophobia shivering down his spine.

Keep quiet no longer

We'll sing through the day

Of the lives that we've lost

And the lives we've reclaimed

So far, the only rules he lived with were that he never stole from anyone younger than himself, or anyone sick or crippled or anything, and that he forced himself to go to school. He just barely managed to scrape by in his classes, mostly because he almost never did his homework. But he passed all his tests. Other than that, he lived as free as a bird, doing and going where he wanted when he wanted to and not letting an adult boss him around.

Adults were almost like another species. Mostly, the term was thought of as interchangeable with the words, 'the enemy'. Adults were nosy and controlling and felt that years of sitting safely in their homes stuffing their faces with food gave them the right to tell Sora how he should live his life. Adults represented the opposite ideal of his valued freedom. He had fought tooth and nail for every scrap of food he'd ever eaten, had seen things that no child of six years should ever have seen. They couldn't take his freedom. He'd earned the right to do whatever he wanted to.

He'd earned it.

Don't hold me up, now

I can stand my own ground

I don't need your help, now

You won't let me down, down, down

A lone figure stood on a hilltop, looking over the sleeping town on Destiny Island. It was shrouded in a black coat resembling robes, and a hood covered its face. The figure swept its gaze over the town, a secret smile curling the corners of its mouth.

"Is it time yet?" it spoke. Its voice revealed its apparent youth, and that it was a boy.

"We've been given permission," a second, taller figure, also wrapped in black, replied. "The town's just crawling with young ones. Nobody will miss a few."

"And the problem we discussed earlier?"

"If we move fast enough, it shouldn't be an issue," the tall one said. "In, grab some, out, we're gone. Cakewalk."

"Things are never that easy," the shorter figure shook his head slowly. "But desperate times…"

"Ever the optimist," the tall one chuckled humorlessly. "By the way, have you found him yet?"

"He wasn't where I thought he'd be, but, yeah, I found him," the young one replied. "We'll get him and his friends tomorrow."

"Perfect timing," the tall figure noted.

"Let's just go back," the short one sighed, unenthusiastically. "We can't do it till morning." The pair turned as one and leaped off the roof. They had been waiting for years for this. They could wait another night.

Don't hold me up

I don't need your help, I'll stand my ground

Don't hold me up

I don't need your help

No, no, no

Don't hold me up

I don't need your help, I'll stand my ground

Don't hold me up

I don't need your help, I'll stand my ground

Don't hold me down, down, down, down

_(A/N: As I have stated in previous stories, I am surprised by the number of vampire Kingdom Hearts fics on this site. I did notice, though, how few werewolf ones there are. So I feel it is my sacred duty to write one. Sorry, I'm kind of ADHD… Keys to Halla will not be put on hold, though, so don't worry. I don't own Kingdom Hearts nor do I own 'Prayer of the Refugee' by Rise Against.)_


	2. Easier To Run

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

It's easier to run

Replacing the pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here all alone

"What the _hell_?!" someone shouted. Sora jerked awake, scrambling to his feet. A boatyard worker gaped at the ragtag teenager he had found sleeping in the hull of a damaged ship though the same hole Sora had wiggled in through last night.

"What are you doing in here, son?" the man regained his composure, shock turning to fury. "This is a restricted area, not some hobo's playground!" Sora flinched at the word 'hobo'. It might have been accurate, but it wasn't flattering. His deep blue eyes darted around for an avenue of escape.

He found it in the form of a rusting ladder leading up to the ruined ship's deck. It didn't look able to support the weight of a fully-grown man, but perhaps one scrawny teenager…

Something has been taken from deep inside of me

A secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see

Wound so deep they never show, they never go away

Like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played

He leaped for it and yanked himself up the rungs, his ears filled with the screech of rusted metal and the shouts of the boatyard worker. He barely managed to haul himself onto the pitted deck as the ladder fell apart in his hands. The deck itself creaked and groaned, threatening to collapse at any moment. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

Sora bounded to the side in two leaping strides and vaulted over the railing without hesitation. Adrenaline was burning in his veins like fire, and it lent him the sense of unreality that he needed to perform such a feat of fearlessness. If he'd been more awake and less afraid, he'd never have thought of willingly jumping off the side of a ship. Then again, anything was better than being caught by the police. The police social workers and social workers meant the orphanage…

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would

If I could stand up and take the blame, I would

I would take all the shame to the grave, I would

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would

If I could stand up and take the blame, I would

I would take all my shame to the grave

He hit the dirt of the yard and rolled, the impact jarring his legs all the way up to his hips and driving the breath from his body, but not breaking any bones. Immediately, the boy was up and running. The creaking barks of the guard dog sounded from the boathouse, and his imagination lent the decrepit hound large, savage teeth. In a matter of minutes, he had reached the chain-link fence. Once again, adrenaline gave him the added push he needed to take a flying leap and just manage to tumble over the top of the fence, wincing as the barbed wire loops scraped though his shirt and across his stomach.

He bolted for the town, making for the relative safety that came with crowds of people. Shortly, Sora found himself mingling with a mob of other teens hanging out at the mall on their summer vacations. He sauntered through the complex, casually checking out window displays while scanning the reflections in the glass for any sign of cops.

There were none.

It's easier to run

Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here all alone

He breathed a sigh of relief and paid for his negligence by tripping over his own untied shoelaces and falling into a nearby woman. With a hurried apology on Sora's part and smiling reassurances on the woman's, the teen backed away and made for one of the many fast-food places in the mall. He paid for a meal with money from the woman's wallet, which he had stolen while pretending to fall into her, and turned away, meaning to go outside to eat it.

As he slurped on the soda, Sora casually swept the crowds with his ocean-blue eyes, on the lookout still. What he saw made him stiffen in a panic far greater than what the cops could induce, though a different kind of panic.

There, not five yards away, were Hayner, Pence, Olette, and Riku, goofing around and browsing the mall.

_Stupid! They_ told _you they'd be here today,_ Sora cursed himself. He couldn't let them see him before he'd had a chance to clean himself up! Luckily, they hadn't spotted him yet, but they were steadily moving closer.

Muttering explicatives, Sora dove behind a family of people jabbering rapidly in Spanish. Some of them gave him strange looks, but if they said anything it was in Spanish. Sora stayed tense, squinting at the spot he had last seen his friends in while concealing himself behind a trash can as the Spanish family moved away. He couldn't see them through the swirling throngs of people, but maybe they had moved away and hadn't seen him.

No such luck.

Sometimes I remember the darkness of my past

Bringing back these memories I wish I didn't have

Sometimes I think of letting go and never looking back

And never moving forward so there'd never be a past

"Sora, what are you doing here?" Hayner's voice shouted out as he clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Come to share the torture?"

"We thought we saw you back here," Pence added from behind a mountain of shopping bags. (Presumably Olette's.)

"Why were you hiding from… us…" Olette's query trailed off as Sora slowly, unwillingly, turned to face them.

"Sora, what the heck…?" Riku whispered, staring. All their questions died before they were spoken as the four took in their friend's appearance. The cobwebs stuck to him, the flakes of rust on his arms, the bugs in his hair, the tears in his shirt through which bleeding cuts could be seen, the streaks of mold on his face and clothes, and the general scruffiness that spoke of sleeping in day clothes and uncombed hair and not having had a shower.

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would

If I could stand up and take the blame, I would

I would take all the shame to the grave, I would

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would

If I could stand up and take the blame, I would

I would take all my shame to the grave

"I…" Sora looked away, unable to look his friends in the eyes. His friends, their parents, the police, the social workers, the orphanage…

"Hey, Hayner, guys!" a new voice called. Selphie came to a panting halt beside Riku, trailing Kairi, Tidus, and Wakka behind her. Sora's blood turned to ice water in his veins. Not all eight of them. "We were bored, so we thought we'd catch you and see what was happening!"

"Jeez, Sora, did you just wake up or something?" Tidus joked, coming around behind him. "You smell like…!" He stopped midsentence.

"Sora…" Kairi gasped when she saw his face. "What happened?"

"He hasn't told us yet," Hayner informed the newcomers. "What did happen, man? You look like you've spent the night in a parking lot or something." Sora laughed at that; a sound so completely without humor that most of his friends took a step back in alarm.

"Something like that," he said bitterly.

"Sora…" Kairi reached out and gently touched his cheek.

This show of emotion was too much. Sora whirled and bolted, dropping his forgotten meal as he tried to escape the few people who made life worth living. His friends, their parents, the police, the social workers, the orphanage… It was just easier to run than face them. It was easier to run than face anything.

Just washing it aside

All of the helplessness inside

Pretending I don't feel misplaced

Is so much simpler than change

"Sora, wait!" The group's tone changed from concerned to determined in a heartbeat. As coordinated as a pack of wolves, they took off after their fleeing friend with single-minded intensity. Sora was good at losing cops, but he soon realized that what worked on middle-aged officers didn't shake a bunch of teenagers in their prime. He quickly ran out of tricks, and settled for running as fast as he could in the hopes of outdistancing them.

As he threw a glance over his shoulder to gauge their proximity, he failed to watch where he was going. As a result, Sora slammed full-speed into what felt like a padded brick wall. His legs shot out from under him and the boy was thrown back onto his butt on the pavement. He squinted upwards to see that he had hit a man dressed in a black coat with a hood covering his face.

_Black, in this heat? What is this guy, crazy?_ Sora thought, springing to his aching feet. The adrenaline could only keep him going for so long… "Sorry, mister!" he called, trying to dodge around him.

A gloved hand shot out and grabbed Sora's upper arm in a vicelike grip. Sora cried out as the man yanked his arm and twisted it up behind the boy's back. "Hey, I said I was sorry!" He shouted. "Let me go!"

"Sora!" the others arrived, Riku and Hayner at the forefront. The two boys jumped onto Sora's assailant, punching as hard as they could in his gut. The man grunted and loosened his grip enough for the blue-eyed orphan to squirm away, eel-like. As the three turned to flee in the opposite direction, they were brought up short. Three other black-clothed men blocked their passage and cut them off from the rest of their group.

It's easier to run

Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here all alone

"What do you want?" Hayner demanded, raising his fists.

"You," one of the men stated. At some unseen signal, all four men jumped forward and seized the boys' arms, rendering their struggles ineffective. The men started to run, dragging their captives along with them.

A stone flew out of nowhere and hit Hayner's kidnapper in the head. He tripped and fell over, allowing Hayner to scramble free and run back to Wakka, who had thrown the stone. Selphie and Tidus hurled their own projectiles at the men in coats. Both rocks struck Riku's captor in his legs, causing him to stumble and release the silver-haired boy.

By now, Sora was the only one left still unable to run. He thrashed like a landed fish in the man's grip, feeling the edge of panic invading his thoughts and clouding his judgment. His friends threw more stones, but they were quickly falling behind. The black-coated men, now mostly unburdened, ran at a seemingly inhuman pace.

"Quit wiggling around," the man complained, shifting Sora so that he was thrown over the man's shoulder in a fireman's carry. As he did so, his eyes met those of the black-coated man who he had bumped into, running behind him. Blue eyes met green ones and their gazes locked, rendering him unable to even blink.

At once, a feeling of leadenness spread through Sora's veins, ousting the last of his adrenaline and panic. He fell limp over his kidnapper's back, his eyes finally released from the intense green eyes. He didn't get to enjoy it long, as the heavy feeling spread to his eyelids. The sounds of his friends' panicked screaming followed Sora down as he sank into oblivion.

It's easier to run

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made

It's easier to go

If I could change, I would; take back the pain, I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would

If I could stand up and take the blame, I would

I would take all my shame to the grave

_(A/N: 'Easier to Run' is property of Linkin Park. I didn't really intend for this story to be a songfic, but if that's how you want to interpret it…)_


	3. Over My Head

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

I open my eyes

I try to see buy I'm blinded by the white light

I can't remember how

I can't remember why

I'm lying here tonight

Reality swam at the edges of Sora's slowly returning consciousness. His dreams had trembled and blurred and spun and danced like the wavering curtains of the northern lights: a kaleidoscope of images and colors that made no sense and now hurt his head as he thought about them. As a matter of fact, everything hurt his head. His blood pulsed through aching veins and throbbed loudly in his skull, making continued sleep impossible.

_Jeez, what did I do last night?_ The thought swam groggily through Sora's brain. He was unable to muster the energy to even moan. _I was in that ship, and then…_ Reality set in with an audible thump. His friends had seen him and he'd run and been kidnapped by a bunch of men in black! His eyes shot open.

Almost immediately, they were shut again. Spears of light stabbed through his sockets and into his brain painfully.

And I can't stand the pain

And I can't make it go away

No, I can't stand the pain

"Hey, his eyes just opened!" a voice nearby yelped in surprise. The noise made Sora screw up his face in pain. Was this what people with hangovers felt like?

"That's impossible," another voice replied. "He should've slept for hours with the dose I gave him."

"Come see for yourself," the first voice challenged. "He's definitely waking up." Footsteps approached. Sora quickly smoothed out his expression and tried to breathe deeply and evenly, despite the fear coursing through him.

"Huh, you're right," the second voice, now much closer, grunted disbelievingly. "What'll they dream up next? Hey, you, stop pretending to be asleep." Something sharp poked Sora's side.

Deciding that there was no more point in feigning sleep, the boy slowly cracked his eyes open. As his eyes adjusted to the light and his head stopped exploding, Sora opened his eyes more to see what mess he'd gotten into this time.

Above him hovered a thin man in a black coat. The man's spiky, shockingly red hair sent starbursts across Sora's sensitive vision, so much so that he almost missed the man's green eyes. Green eyes that seemed somehow familiar…

"Hmm, I think I gave him brain damage or something," the man mused, tapping his chin in an attitude of thoughtfulness. "Then again, to wake up so quickly…"

"Can you hear us?" a softer voice asked. Sora slid his eyes to the side, not quite daring to turn his head in case it cracked into pieces. He made out a blonde blur in a white dress in his peripheral vision.

"Yeah," he croaked in the merest thread of a voice.

"His brain's just fine," the girl concluded, shooting a glare at the redheaded man. "But you are right. It's strange for it to have such an adverse effect even while it didn't work as well as we thought it would."

"I'm always right, Naminé, dear," the redhead grinned. Sora noticed two teardrop-like tattoos on each of his cheeks, below his eyes.

"You'd better go tell Roxas," the girl, Naminé, said. The man muttered something, flapped a careless hand, and exited the room. Now that Sora was in any shape to notice such things, he saw that he was in a sparsely furnished bedroom, lying on the bed. The girl sat in a chair to one side of him, a sketchbook balanced on her knees and a pencil in her hand.

How could this happen to me?

I've made my mistakes

Got nowhere to run

The night goes on

As I'm fading away

I'm sick of this life

I just wanna scream

How could this happen to me?

"Where am I?" Sora mumbled.

"Oh? You don't need to worry about that," Naminé smiled at him, her hand not pausing in its movements across the pages of her sketchbook. He found it strange how sweet and non-threatening she was being considering that she and her friends had kidnapped him. He found himself almost wishing she would snap or growl or otherwise intimidate him, just so that he'd be on more familiar ground.

"Roxas has been looking for you for a while," the girl continued, brushing pencil dust away from her drawing and pursing her lips at it. "Do you remember Roxas?"

"Roxas…" the name seemed familiar. Long ago, he had had a friend named Roxas, hadn't he? "From the… orphanage?"

"Yeah," she smiled wider, looking very happy.

"He was adopted," Sora recalled. Now the memories were coming back to him. Roxas had been his childhood friend at the orphanage, the two musketeers. But then, when Sora was eleven, Roxas had been adopted by someone on a different island. The separation had been heartbreaking, and part of the reason Sora only remained at the orphanage for two more years.

"Sora, you're awake?" a voice from the past asked. Sora mustered gathered enough energy to turn his head to the side. (Had they drugged him or something? He was so weak…) He saw a boy that could have been his twin framed in the doorway. Blue eyes smiled at him from a head topped by windswept blond spikes. He was just as thin as when they had lived off of crusts of bread and wilted cabbage, though his skin was paler, almost translucent, and he wore the same long, black coat the redhead had worn.

Everybody's screaming

I try to make a sound but no one hears me

I'm slipping off the edge

I'm hanging by a thread

I wanna start this over again

"Heya, Roxas," he managed to smile. Naminé vacated the room discreetly, allowing Roxas to sit in the chair by Sora's bedside.

"Sorry about the kidnapping thing," Roxas shrugged. "It was inconvenient timing. I couldn't find you at the orphanage. So you finally left, huh?"

"Yeah. Uh, why'd you wanna kidnap me, anyway?" Sora mumbled.

"I thought I was going to rescue you from that hellhole," Roxas shook his head, grinning. "But I guess I was too late. So much for heroics."

"You tried to take Hayner and Riku," Sora accused. "And you… drugged me?"

"Yeah, about that…" Roxas scratched the back of his head, looking uncomfortable. "I was adopted by these people, uh, people in a kind of Organization. Some things happened and… now they need new recruits so we were going to… you know…"

"Kidnap them and force them to join?" Sora's strength was returning. "What kind of twisted cult have you fallen in with now?"

"It's hard to explain," Roxas avoided his friend's eyes.

"Try," Sora commanded.

"Well, you see, the Organization is a group of…" Roxas never got the chance to finish. Even as he spoke, there was a crash so loud that the entire building shook. Roxas leaped to his feet, cursing, as Naminé rushed into the room looking panicked.

"It's the lycans!" she screamed. "They're attacking!"

"Stay with Sora," Roxas ordered, sprinting out the door before she'd even finished.

So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered

And I can't explain what happened

And I can't erase the things that I've done

No I can't

"What's going on?" Sora cried, struggling to sit upright.

"They found our hideout," Naminé's hands were trembling as she clutched her sketchbook to her chest. "We didn't expect them so soon, though."

"Who?"

"The lycanthropes," the blonde girl stated as if that explained everything. There was another crash that set the room's door rattling on its hinges. Naminé squeaked in terror and ran to brace herself against the closed door, as if holding it steady with her body.

The room's window exploded inward in a fountain of shattered glass. Something large slammed into the place where the pale girl had been standing moments before, splintering the floorboards. Sora's breath hitched in his throat.

It was a humongous wolf. A shaggy, brown wolf with a scar slashing across its muzzle. Sora's terrified gaze took in its muscular shoulders, its wicked claws, its thick ruff around its neck, the intelligent gleam in its stormy gray eyes. There was something about this wolf that sent the hairs on Sora's arms prickling, and not just from fear of the wild animal. It was something deeper, almost instinctive…

The wolf snarled explosively at the cowering Naminé, who screamed and nearly took flight as she pelted down the hall to escape the huge beast. Sora was left alone, fighting to move his unresponsive limbs and trying to ignore his headache, his every thought centered on not getting eaten. The wolf swung its head towards him and studied him in a curious manner. The snarled dropped off its face, and it sniffed the air in Sora's direction. He hoped that he smelled unappetizing so that it would leave him alone.

Instead, the wolf, seeming satisfied, stepped forward. It yapped loudly and nosed Sora's side, almost like a dog that wanted to play. Now fear combined with the drug in his system to paralyze his body. The wolf gripped his arm almost delicately in its teeth. Sora nearly fainted in terror.

The animal merely tugged him to the edge of the bed. Sora slipped off to land on the wolf's furry back. Was this wild beast… rescuing him?

The wolf took off after Naminé, careful not to let his passenger fall off. Sora saw that the rest of the building was a normal, suburban house like any you might find in any town. Or at least, he could see that it _would_ look like that, were it not filled with snarling, yapping wolves and struggling people in black coats. Sora caught glimpses of the struggle as his steed bounded through the house, down the stairs, and out the front door. As soon as they had crossed the threshold, a howl rose up from the wolves still inside the house. They streamed out after the brown one in an attitude that positively screamed 'REATREAT!'

How could this happen to me?

I've made my mistakes

Got nowhere to run

The night goes on

As I'm fading away

I'm sick of this life

I just wanna scream

How could this happen to me?

Sora's teeth rattled in his head as his limp body bounced from the force of the wolf's stride. He noticed suddenly that it was nighttime. The wolves ran in silence for a couple of miles, occasionally checking behind them as if for pursuit. There was none.

After they had put sufficient distance between themselves and the house of kidnappers, the wolves halted. A twitch of the wolf's shoulders sent Sora sliding off onto the ground like a broken puppet. He lay facedown in the dirt, unable to rearrange his limbs into a more comfortable position or even look up to see what the wolves were doing.

After a few minutes of lying like that, human hands rolled the boy over. He stared up at a man with shaggy, brown hair, stormy gray eyes, and a scar running from his temple to his opposite cheek. The man leaned down without a word and slung Sora across his back as easily as if he weighed nothing. He took off running.

The boy was aware of other people running alongside them, but he never got a good look at any of them. His vision swam in and out of focus, and eventually, he was able to doze off against the shoulder of his rescuer. A single thought floated out of the recesses of his mind.

_Werewolves…_

I've made my mistakes

Got nowhere to run

The night goes on

As I'm fading away

I'm sick of this life

I just wanna scream

How could this happen to me?

What happened to you?

You've played the victim for so long now in this game

What I thought was true

Is made of fiction and I'm following the same

For the second time in what seemed like minutes, Sora regained consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings. This time, his sleep had been dreamless, and his head didn't hurt upon waking. He yawned and reached up to rub his eyes, realizing that his muscles once again responded to his will.

"Morning, sleepyhead," a female voice giggled. Sora sat up and looked over. He was lying on a mattress on the floor of what appeared to be a barn. Shafts of sunlight filtered in through the holes in the ceiling, illuminating piles of hay and straw in dusty golden light. By the angle of the light, it looked to be early morning.

The voice had belonged to a girl sitting nearby, leaning against an empty stall and watching Sora with keen brown eyes. There didn't seem to be any animals in the barn, and there was no sign of wolves.

"Who are you?" Sora demanded. It suddenly dawned on him that he may not have been rescued, but merely re-kidnapped.

"My name's Yuffie," the girl giggled again. "You drool when you sleep, you know that?"

"Uh-huh…" he stated flatly.

"Don't look so serious," she shook her head and stood, brushing bits of hay off her legs. "We saved you, remember? You're safe now."

"Where am I?" the boy questioned, also standing. He felt a little unsteady, but it was more like the unsteadiness that came from sleeping too long than the unsteadiness of having been drugged. "And who were those people?"

"You mean you don't know?" Yuffie eyed him interestedly. "I thought for sure…. The way you were chatting with that boy… You'd better come with me." She led the way out of the barn's double doors. A farm spread out before him, complete with pastures, fields, and a white farmhouse a few yards away. At first glance it seemed almost idyllic, but closer inspection revealed that the fields were full of dead, brown crops, the pastures were abandoned, and both house and barn had peeling paint and collapsing roofs.

But if I tried

To make sense of this mess I'm in

I'm not sure where I should begin

I'm falling

I'm falling

Yuffie led Sora to the farmhouse, thumping up the front steps and crashing through the screen door in a cacophony of wooden squeals and groans. Sora followed more gingerly, still wondering what was going on. He entered a small, dimly lit kitchen. Despite its outward derelict appearance, the inside of the house was clean and well-kept, if rustic. Yuffie's voice came from the next room over, and Sora followed the sound.

"…but he says he doesn't know them, so I brought him over here so you could tell him," the girl was telling someone. It was a man sitting in a chair next to a cold fireplace, a man with a scar and brown hair. The one who'd carried Sora away from Roxas last night.

The werewolf.

"Oh, there you are," Yuffie bounced. "C'mon, they don't bite!" She seized his hand and dragged him further into the room. He now saw that this was a living room, and occupied by six other people on couches and chairs circling a coffee table. They all looked at him, obviously trying to look friendly.

Now I'm in over my head, with something I said

Completely misread, I'm better off dead

And now I can see how fake you can be

This hypocrisy's beginning to get to me

"This is Squall," Yuffie gestured to the man in the chair.

"_Leon_," the man corrected with the tone of someone on the edge of impatience.

"Alright, _Leon_," Yuffie rolled her eyes. Sora could tell that this was an old argument. "Anyway, he's our al—I mean, our leader," Yuffie rethought what she had been about to say. "Um, what was your name again?"

"I'm Sora," the boy yanked his hand out of her grip and eyed the gathering of people suspiciously. Were they all werewolves?

"I take it by your nervousness that you know what we are?" a woman with brown hair held back in a bow smiled reassuringly.

"Kinda…"

"We're lycanthropes," Leon supplied, waving towards an unoccupied chair. Sora sat quickly. "Or, as the ignorant might put it, werewolves."

"I told you, we don't bite," Yuffie winked, perching on the arm of Leon's chair.

"So, why did you come in and run off with me?" Sora questioned, skirting around the word 'kidnapped' in case it offended them.

"I would have thought you'd be glad," a younger blonde lounging on the couch commented. "We saved you, y'know."

"Stop it, you're scaring him," a brunette on the same couch smacked her friend in the head. The girl rubbed her skull and pouted, but said nothing.

"Did they say why they had kidnapped you?" Leon brought the conversation back on track.

"Well, yeah," Sora shrugged. "I knew one of them, Roxas, when we were kids. He got adopted and I didn't. He said he came back to take me out of the orphanage. You interrupted him before he could say why he'd tried to take my other friends, too, or what the deal with this 'Organization' was."

"Then this might come as a shock," Leon leaned forward. "But your friend is no longer human." Dead silence fell.

It's none of my concern

Why look to me? Cause I don't believe in fame

I guess you never heard

I've met our makers; they don't even know your name

"What… what do you… mean…?" Sora stammered, a horrible idea forming in his head. "He's not a…"

"He's a vampire, kid," a man with short, blond hair told him. "The Organization's a coven of vampires."

"But he… he couldn't… what about Naminé? Was she a vampire, too?" Sora's brain went into hyperdrive.

"That girl… she's their pet. Their chew toy. They drain her blood if times get tough and they need to feed, but they don't kill her and they don't change her," Leon explained. "She stays willingly because she's in love with Roxas."

"We think that they were kidnapping children to increase their ranks," Yuffie put in. "Recently, they've only got thirteen members and Naminé in their coven, and they want more."

"Sadly, our numbers are even fewer," the woman with the bow gestured around the room. "This is all that's left of our pack. We're slowly loosing the battle."

But if I tried

To say 'goodbye' to leave this hell

I'd say my time has served me well

I'm falling

I'm falling

"Don't say that!" the young brunette protested.

"What battle?" Sora asked at the same time.

"The battle for humanity," the woman replied, so seriously that Sora couldn't even think of laughing at the cheesy line. "Lycans have always fought vampires. We fight for the humans' right to be more than just a food source, while the vampires seem to forget that they were once human, and seek only to breed them like cattle for the slaughter."

"Don't werewolves, you know…"

"Eat humans?" the woman guessed his next question. "No. Never."

"Actually, sometimes we do," the blonde girl on the couch corrected. "When we first turn, sometimes we lose control and attack humans. Sometimes it takes new lycans months to learn how to control themselves."

"But sometimes they learn right away," the brunette chimed in. "It all depends on the person."

"Okay… so why did you save me from the vampires?" the blue-eyed orphan persisted. They all looked at him like he was crazy.

"Didn't we just say that we protected humans?" Yuffie huffed, rolling her eyes. "That includes not letting them turn people."

"Turn people… into vampires?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, then, can I go home now?" Sora asked hopefully. He sighed in disappointment when Leon shook his head.

"We've got a few more questions for you," he said.

Now I'm in over my head, with something I said

Completely misread, I'm better off dead

And now I can see how fake you can be

This hypocrisy's beginning to get to

"Why didn't the vampires bite you and turn you when they took you?" Yuffie asked.

"I don't think they had time," Sora frowned, struggling to remember. "It was, like, noon when they first kidnapped me, and I woke up at sunset, I think. They drugged me or something."

"That explains it," Leon nodded. "They hypnotized you." Now that he mentioned it, Sora remembered that he had started feeling sleepy when he'd looked into the redheaded vampire's eyes.

"They said something about giving me enough to last until tomorrow," Sora recalled. "They said it was strange for my head to hurt so much even when I woke up early."

"Maybe you have a natural resistance," Yuffie suggested.

"So, can I go home _now_?" the boy begged. "My friends will be worried…" And he'd worried them enough already.

"You can't go back, Sora," Leon's words were like a slap across the face. "They know where you live; they can find you again. If you go back, they'll just abduct you again, and this time they'll turn you."

"But I have to go back!" Sora objected. "I can't just leave like that!"

"Call your friends," the blonde girl offered, tossing him a cell phone. "Tell them not to worry. And your parents, too, if you want."

"Thanks…" Sora flipped the phone open and punched in Kairi's number. The line was busy. Scowling, he tried Selphie's. It went to voicemail. In desperation, he dialed Riku's number, frowning as he tried to remember it. This time, it rang.

This came long before those who suffer more

I'm too awake for this to be a nightmare

What's with my disgrace? I lost the human race

No one plans for it to blow up in their face

"Hello?" Riku's voice was far away and tinny.

"Hey, it's me, Sora," Sora said, conscious of all the werewolves' eyes on him.

"Sora?!" Riku's shout echoed through the room.

"Wow, they really were worried," Yuffie laughed. Blushing, Sora stood and went into the kitchen where they couldn't hear him.

"Sora, where are you?" Riku demanded. "The girls have been frantic!"

"Sorry, I kinda got _kidnapped_," Sora snapped. Then, "No, really, I'm sorry, that came out badly. Some people came and saved me, though, so I'm safe. Really."

"Tell that to Kairi," Riku snorted. "She's been crying her eyes out, and Olette and Selphie basically spent the night in the police station reporting it. They didn't believe us, mostly because apparently you come up in their files as _dead_."

"Yeah, that," Sora scratched his head awkwardly. "I ran away from the orphanage…"

"Two years ago? And you never told us?" Riku's voice managed to sound both angry and concerned at the same time. "Sora, we could've helped you if we'd known. Why didn't you tell us?"

"You'd tell your parents, who'd tell the police, who'd send me back," Sora attempted to explain. "I didn't want to worry you guys…"

"Didn't want to worry us, he says," Riku griped. "Do you realize that at this very moment Pence is trying to talk Hayner and Tidus out of a plan to storm into whatever building you're in right now, guns blazing?"

"They have guns?"

"No, and that's part of the problem," Riku sighed. "You were kidnapped by four grown men. What are the odds of them actually helping you instead of just being caught themselves?"

"It's a moot point," Sora dismissed it. "I'm safe now, I think."

"So why are you calling? Why aren't you telling us in person? Are you being forced to call and tell us this at gunpoint or something?"

"Can we say 'paranoid'?" Sora snickered before sobering. "I'm calling to say that I'm not coming back."

"WHAT."

"…I can't come back because they know where I live and they'll just try to kidnap me again," Sora replied.

"Is everything okay?" the woman with the bow in her hair poked her head into the kitchen.

"I don't believe that crap," Riku snarled. "You're coming back, Sora, whether you like it or not!"

"They're taking it badly," Sora said to the woman. Then, to Riku, "I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not coming back." At his elbow, the woman took out a pen and scribbled an address on a napkin, her intent clear. "Look, I'm at this farm…" he told his friend the address. "…come see me and I'll tell you in person, okay?"

"We're on our way. All of us." The line went dead. Sora sighed and turned off the phone, too.

Who said it was easy to put back all these pieces?

Who said it was so easy to put back all of these pieces?

"They think I'm being coerced into telling them I'm okay," Sora told the woman.

"They'll change their minds when they see you," the woman soothed him. "It'll be okay. I don't we've been properly introduced; my name is Aerith. Let me introduce the others to you." She took his hand and gently led him back into the living room.

"His friends are coming over to see that he's alright," Aerith announced.

"What? Humans are coming here?" Leon barked. "What if they tell the vampires where we are?"

"They won't," Aerith's tone was steady. "Sora trusts them." Sora nodded, his eyes on the floor. "You're scaring him, Leon." The boy flushed red and shuffled his feet.

"Here's your phone," he mumbled, holding it out to the blonde girl.

"You're cute when you blush," the girl remarked, taking it. "I'm Rikku, by the way. I'm the omega."

"Riku?" Sora was confused.

"R-I-K-K-U," the girl confirmed.

"My name is Yuna," the brunette girl added. "And this is Paine," she motioned to a gray-haired girl who had so far remained silent.

"The name's Cid," the blond man held out a calloused hand, which Sora gingerly shook. "This sour-faced feller over here is our beta, Cloud." Cloud seemed to be a twenty-year-old version of Roxas with blond hair and blue eyes, but more taciturn.

"What's a beta? And an omega?" Sora asked, sitting back down.

"Well, they're kind of like positions in the pack," Yuna explained. "The alpha is the leader who makes all the decisions for the pack. The beta is usually the biggest and toughest because his or her job is to enforce the alpha's orders by force if necessary. Aerith and Yuffie are the hunters, so their job is to overtake 'prey' and herd it back to the rest of us so we can take it down."

"This is metaphorically speaking," Paine put in.

"Yeah," Rikku agreed. "We aren't really out there killing moose or whatever."

Now I'm in over my head, with something I said

Completely misread, I'm better off dead

And now I can see how fake you can be

This hypocrisy's beginning to get to me

"So what does an omega do?" Sora repeated.

"She diffuses the tension, mostly," Yuna shrugged. "In the wild, omega wolves break up fights between other wolves by taking it all onto themselves. They are chased away from kills so that other wolves can change positions without fighting, and in return they're rewarded with the highest quality meat."

"In the _wild_," Rikku stressed. "Around here, all I do is break up fights without any of the rewards. I am the best singer, though. Omega wolves howl tunefully to calm the rest of the pack. I just do it to irritate them." She fluttered her eyelashes at Leon, who studiously ignored her.

"Aerith's the nanny," Yuna put in. "She educates all new lycans. But we haven't got any new ones in a long time."

"So, how are the positions decided?" Sora asked, fascinated.

"You're born into them," Yuffie put in. "For instance, if Leon bit you, you'd become the next alpha after he died. If Cloud bit you, you'd become the beta, and so on."

"It's everyone's duty to turn at least one human before they die, just so that the pack lives on, but sometimes they die unexpectedly, and our numbers dwindle," Aerith told him.

"Cool," Sora smiled. In the movies, werewolves were always rabid beasts. Now he saw that real werewolves had traditions and hierarchies and organization, not just a rabble of mindless killing machines. He couldn't wait to tell his friends… except that Leon probably wouldn't like that… He was jerked out of his thoughts by someone pounding on the door.

"That's them!" he jumped to his feet and raced to the door, only to find the way blocked by Yuffie and Rikku.

"Maybe you should let us answer the door," Yuffie suggested.

"Just in case they're vampires or something," Rikku agreed. Without waiting for his reply, the girls marched over to the front door and yanked it open. "Yeah, who is it?"

There was a gunshot, and Rikku fell to the floor, blood spreading across her side. Another shot ricocheted around the room and took out the kitchen's light.

"Nobody move, or we'll shoot!"

Over my head, better off dead

Over my head, better off

Alright

_(A/N: 'Over My Head' belongs to Sum 41 and 'Untitled' belongs to Simple Plan. The breaks were kind of awkward here, so work with me please.)_


	4. Will I Ever Make It Home?

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

Woke up from my sleep to the sound of that voice  
From the words that I heard I had no choice  
They told me I had to turn around  
My assurance slowly faded down  
And I wonder

"What the hell was that?" Rikku sprang to her feet, still clutching her bloody side. It didn't seem to affect the volume of her voice. "Why'd you SHOOT ME?!"

"I said don't move!" the voice shouted, shaking a little. This time, Sora recognized it.

"Tidus, you _retard_!" Sora yelled, shoving his way past Yuffie. "You shot my friend, you psycho!"

"I… we thought… you…" the sandy-haired boy stammered, lowering his gun. Behind him, the rest of their group watched in shock. They hadn't been able to talk Tidus out of stealing his dad's gun and bringing it, but they hadn't thought he actually _shoot_ anyone… "I wasn't aiming for her… I missed…"

"It's okay, don't kill the kid, Sora," Rikku waved a hand. "It's just a scratch."

"It's bleeding a lot," the boy frowned. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, fine," the omega laughed. "If I weren't, would I be standing here talking to you?"

"Still, you'd better come and see Aerith," Yuffie interjected. "Sora, why don't you and your friends go talk in the barn? We won't eavesdrop, they'll feel safe, and no one else will get shot. Hopefully."

"Yeah, we'll do that," Sora nodded as the girl led her wounded friend into the living room. Then, returning his angry gaze to Tidus, "You're lucky Cloud didn't come out here and rip your head off or something. Come on, the barn's this way."

Will I ever make it home?  
Will I ever leave the ground?  
Leave this place so far behind

He shooed his friends off the steps and led the way to the rickety old barn. Olette, Kairi, and Selphie sat on top of a stall's wall, while Riku and Wakka leaned against the wall. Tidus and Pence flopped down in a pile of hay. Once they were all seated, the questioning began.

"Who were those men in black who tried to kidnap me and Riku?" Hayner demanded from where he was leaning against a support beam for the hayloft.

"They didn't tell me," Sora replied, truthfully. Leon had been the one who had told him. "They kind of drugged me, so I couldn't move or anything."

"That's awful!" Olette gasped. "How'd you get away?"

"I didn't. Leon and his group broke into the house and carried me out of there," the boy related.

"How did they know you were in there? And why would they go around rescuing random strangers?" Wakka asked.

"Well, their kind of all one family, right? And the ones who kidnapped me are another family that their family's been at odds with for a long time," Sora struggled to put it in terms that made sense while avoiding the words 'werewolf', 'vampire', and 'fight for humanity'.

"I can understand that if these people go around kidnapping kids," Pence snorted.

"Why did they kidnap you?" Kairi wanted to know.

"I knew one of them from the orphanage," Sora winced and wished he could take his words back as everyone's eyes suddenly grew hard.

"About that…" Selphie began. Sora threw up his hands in surrender.

"Alright, alright, I get it, you're all pissed at me for not telling you," he sighed. "I know."

"So why didn't you tell us? And don't give us that bull about not wanting our parents to call the police," Hayner snapped.

"Well, how do you people think I pay for meals and clothes?" Sora demanded. "I steal. I didn't want to get thrown in juvie, either. Even though it'd be better than that damn orphanage."

"What was so terrible about it?" Kairi asked.

"I can't talk about it," Sora turned away.

"You're gonna have to," Riku warned.

"Tell us," Hayner commanded.

"No."

"Keep in mind that I have a gun with me," Tidus chimed in, patting the weapon in question. "And I don't have a steady trigger finger."

"You're not shooting Sora," Kairi growled. "You've already shot enough people."

"Please tell us, Sora?" Selphie whispered. He averted his eyes quickly, but it was too late. She had given him Bambi eyes. Now he had no choice.

"It's hard to talk about…" he said softly. After a moment, he reached up and slipped his jacket off his shoulders. Dropping it on the dusty floor, he crossed his arms and wiggled out of his t-shirt next.

The plans that I had were quickly destroyed  
The problem was one I couldn't avoid  
They welcomed me to stay overnight  
I'm too tired to complain so I just might  
And I wonder

"Oh my god, Sora…" Olette breathed. His chest was crisscrossed with scars. Some were deep, some mere white threads, some puckered and still painful-looking. He turned around to show them that the marks continued over his back.

"This didn't happen overnight," he told them quietly. "It was over years and years, from when I was six to when I was thirteen. Seven years of it… And that's just physical."

"Don't they have health inspectors or something?" Riku was appalled.

"Uh, yeah, but if you'll notice: none of my scars show above my collar or sleeves. None on my legs, either, so I can wear shorts in summer," Sora said bitterly. "No one has a clue until I take my shirt off."

"Pretty impressive set of scars there, buddy," Rikku came into the barn behind him, whistling at the sight of his back. "You look like you've gone through a war or something. I've got a new one myself." She pulled up the hem of her shirt a bit to show her bandaged side. "Or, I will when these things come off."

"I'm really, really sorry," Tidus sank farther into the hay, scared that she'd be mad.

"Like I said: no harm, no foul," she brushed his apology aside. "I'm tough. Anyway, I came to see how things were going. Leon wants them gone as soon as possible, the grumpy old recluse."

"You aren't coming back with us?" Selphie asked in a small, hurt voice.

"It's nothing personal, Selph," Sora shrugged helplessly. "I can't go back. It's not even very safe for you guys to go, since they know you know me, and because of… other things. Watch out for guys wearing black and lock your doors at night, okay?"

"We will," they promised.

"Sora, how do you know you can trust these people?" Riku eyed the blonde werewolf distrustfully. "You've only known them for a day." Rikku assumed an exaggerated look of hurt, pushing out her lips and widening her eyes.

"Trust _me_ on this," Sora pleaded. "They're good people. I trust them."

"Will we see you again?" Kairi wanted to know, sounding on the verge of tears.

"Of course," Sora replied, not knowing if it was a lie or not, but hoping for the latter. "I'll visit. I promise." Kairi burst into tears then and ran forward to hug him. Olette and Selphie also piled in, sniffling, and it turned into a group hug.

"Bye, Sora," Kairi finally pulled away.

"Bye," he echoed. In a matter of minutes, they were gone, on their way to the car Riku had borrowed from his parents. (He had recently gotten his license.) Sora waved at them until the dust had settled and the car was no longer visible.

Will I ever make it home?  
To the place I recognize  
Far from here and where I've been  
And all the things that I've been shown  
Will I ever make it home?  
Can they keep me here for good?  
Where I hardly know a soul  
And my fear keeps going on

"Will I really be able to visit them?" he asked Rikku hopelessly. She took pity on the miserable boy and hugged him a little herself.

"You will," she confirmed. _I hope_, she added silently. "Maybe they'll give up after a while and you'll be able to go back entirely."

"I hope so," he sighed, turning back to the farmhouse. "Until then, what do I do?"

"Yunie, me, and Paine were going shopping today," Rikku suggested. "You wanna go with us? We can buy you some clothes that don't reek like vampires and aren't covered in mold."

"Okay," he agreed, somewhat reluctantly. Memories of previous shopping trips with Olette, Kairi, and Selphie danced in his head: terrible visions of endless walking, arms loaded with heavy bags, being dressed up like a Ken doll in every store, and listening to chatter about what boy in school was cutest. Still, he was bored, and didn't particularly relish the idea of hanging out in a ramshackle farmhouse full to the brim with closemouthed werewolves. Besides, Rikku and the other girls seemed pretty cool.

My weariness keeps growing inside  
My patience is starting to subside  
And I hope I'll be there soon  
It can't be long or I'll fall through

Woke up from my sleep to the sound of that voice

From the words that I heard I had no choice

They told me I had to turn around

My assurance slowly faded down

And I wonder

"What did you find?" Leon came up behind Cid. The blond lycan was sitting in front of a laptop set up on a table like a desktop.

"Just like I thought," Cid replied, bringing up a file. "The kid's file says he died two years ago. Maybe they didn't wanna admit he ran away?"

"From the way he talks about them, it's more likely they didn't care," Yuffie put in from Cid's other side. The room was empty except for the three of them, the only light coming from the screen of Cid's laptop.

"Either way, he officially doesn't exist," Cid said. "A perfect target for them bloodsuckers."

"What about his parents?" Leon squinted at the display.

"Says they died when he was six," Cid replied. "Found dead in a park. Can't find a single picture of them. But how they died…"

"What about it?" Yuffie asked.

"Well, says that his dad was sucked dry, not a drop of blood left. His mom was hacked to pieces an' then burnt," Cid related. Leon's mouth went dry. Cutting and burning was the only way to kill a vampire…

"His mom was a vampire?" Yuffie was shocked. "I didn't think they could _have_ kids!"

"Not with other vampires, they can't," Leon confirmed. "But with a human…"

"It's worse than that, Leon," Cid shook his head. "Look at their names." Leon leaned over Cid's shoulder and read the words on the screen. His eyes widened in shock.

"No…"

Will I ever make it home?  
Will I ever leave the ground?  
Leave this place so far behind  
Till there is no turning back  
Will I ever make it home?  
Get to where I wanna be  
Find the ones who wait for me  
To the place where I belong  
Will I ever make it home?

Will I ever make it home?

Will I ever make it home?

When this began

I had nothing to say

And I'd get lost in the nothingness inside of me

I was confused

And I let it all out to find

That I'm not the only person with these things in mind

Inside of me

But all the vacancy the words revealed

Is the only real thing that I've got left to feel

Nothing to lose

Just stuck, hollow and alone

And the fault is my own

And the fault is my own

"Quit whining, Sora, you look great!" Yuna giggled.

"I'm wearing a _polo shirt_," the boy grumbled. "During my _vacation_."

"So?"

"You don't dress up to sit on your butt in your house," Paine guessed.

"Exactly."

"Well, our house has a collared shirt dress code," Rikku informed him loftily. "So you've gotta wear it."

"You're wearing a tank top!"

"I pay rent. I don't count," the blonde dumped two more bags onto the three Sora was already holding. "Carry these. I think that's enough shopping for one day, don't you?"

"I'm tired," Yuna agreed.

"Let's go home," Paine finished. The three girls exited the mall, trailing a laden Sora.

"How'll we get these home?" he demanded. "You don't have a car."

"The same way we got here, silly," Rikku giggled. Sora groaned, but followed them as they hiked away from the buildings. They walked and walked until Sora's legs had turned to jelly and they were far enough away from civilization. There, Rikku handed Sora some lengths of twine, and the three girls turned.

It wasn't all _that_ horrifying to watch once you were used to it, Sora decided. As long as you ignored the crunching, snapping sound of rearranging bones and tendons, the squish of shifting organs, the way their skin crawled like a million ants were just under the surface, the way their faces contorted and bulged obscenely, the hair that grew like a time-lapsed video of weeds…

_You know what? Forget that, it's just plain disgusting,_ Sora scrunched up his face. After a few nauseating moments, he stood facing three large wolves. They were smaller than Leon had been, but still bigger than average wolves.

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

What I thought was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long

Erase all the pain till it's gone

I wana heal, I wanna feel

Like I'm close to something real

I wanna find something I've wanted all along

Somewhere I belong

Rikku's fur was sandy-yellow, the same color as her hair, and her eyes stayed green. Her pupils, he now noticed, weren't black dots, but spirals around inside the irises. Yuna's eyes were mismatched: one green one blue, while her short, feathery fur remained chocolate brown. Paine's red eyes made her the scariest of them all, especially since her gray fur looked the most wolfish of all of them.

Remembering his job, Sora set down his parcels and began to fashion saddlebags out of the twine and the shopping bags. When he'd finished, he laid half of the bags over Yuna's back, and half over Rikku's. He climbed onto Paine's back on his stomach, the same way he'd been carried on Leon's that first time, trying not to clutch her fur too hard or dig his feet into her hips too much.

The run back to the farm was nerve-wracking, for Sora at least. Every bound made him scared he'd fall off, or worse, grip too tightly and hurt Paine. Every bend in the road made him wonder what would happen if a normal human saw two wolves carrying shopping bags and one carrying a teenage kid who looked ready to hurl. Every bird flying overhead turned into a vengefully swooping vampire, come to fight and bite Sora.

And he was wearing a polo shirt. Stupid Rikku. He hoped he didn't meet anyone he knew, not only because he was riding a wolf, but because he would look like a total dweeb doing it.

And I've got nothing to say

I can't believe I didn't fall right down on my face

I was confused

Looking everywhere only to find

That it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind

So what am I?

What do I have but negativity?

Cause I can't justify the way everyone is looking at me

Nothing to lose

Nothing to gain, hollow and alone

And the fault is my own

And the fault is my own

It was with tremendous relief that he recognized the farmhouse ahead. The three wolves slowed to a trot, but didn't stop like he thought they would. Instead, they continued into the barn. There, Sora leaped off Paine like she had suddenly sprouted porcupine quills and took the bags off Yuna and Rikku. The transformation back to human was a little less traumatizing, but not much.

"Thank you," Rikku took some of the bags from Sora.

"By the way, sorry we had to put you out here," Yuna pointed at the mattress that was still in the corner. "Our house is small, and there wasn't anymore room."

"It's okay," Sora mumbled, picking up the remaining bags. Then, "How about, as an apology, you let me _not_ wear a polo shirt?"

"Nice try, kid," Paine laughed, leaving.

"But you look so cute!" Rikku pouted, scampering after her. Yuna just giggled and led a grumbling Sora back out of the barn and into the house.

"We're home!" she called at the door. She leaned down and took his bags, saying, "I'll go drop this stuff in my room, wait just a minute." She then went down the hall and mounted the steps, winking at Sora. He stood awkwardly in the kitchen, unsure of where to go now.

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

What I thought was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long

Erase all the pain till it's gone

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

Like I'm close to something real

I wanna find something I've wanted all along

Somewhere I belong

"Hey, Sora," it was Leon's voice, coming from upstairs. "Could you come here a minute?" Curious at the sudden politeness, Sora went up the stairs and found himself in a narrow hallway lined with doors. At the end of the hall, light spilled out through an open doorway. It was from here that Leon had called.

Sora entered the room cautiously. It was somebody's bedroom, judging by the military cot in one corner, the desk and chair in another, and the small closet. Yuffie, Leon, and Cid huddled around a laptop sitting on the desk. The room's single window's blinds were shut, the room illuminated solely by the laptop on the desk.

"You wanted me?" he said by way of greeting. Yuffie eyed him appraisingly, and Cid smirked at him. Their scrutiny made the blue-eyed thief uncomfortable.

"Not much resemblance," the girl commented obscurely.

"What?" Sora frowned.

"Sora, what were your parents' names?" Leon asked. Sora's eyes went blank. He hadn't thought about their names in a while, to him they were just Mom and Dad, and he'd only been six when they'd been alive…

"Marie and Robert Hikari," he said. "My dad's dad was Japanese but they gave my dad an American name because they immigrated… It's complicated."

"I'll bet," Cid whistled. Leon looked like he'd been struck by lightning.

I will never know myself until I do this on my own

And I will never feel anything else until my wounds are healed

I will never be anything till I break away from me

I will break away, I'll find myself today

"Leon, are you okay?" Sora asked, concerned and a little confused. What was so important about his parents' names?

"Sora, Leon's dad had a little sister," Yuffie began.

"Her name was Marie Leonhart," Leon finished. Now Sora was thunderstruck.

"It can't be the same… Marie's a common…" he couldn't finish his words.

"She died nine years ago, too," Leon said. "And she had a son before that. I never got to see him…"

"Sora, this is wonderful!" Yuffie clapped her hands in delight. "You're Leon's cousin!

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

What I thought was never real

I wanna let go of the pain I've felt so long

Erase all the pain till it's gone

I wanna heal, I wanna feel

Like I'm close to something real

I wanna find something I've wanted all along

Somewhere I belong

I wanna heal; I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong

I wanna heal; I wanna feel like I'm somewhere I belong

Somewhere I belong

_(A/N: 'Somewhere I Belong' belongs to Linkin Park and 'Will I Ever Make It Home?' belongs to Ingram Hill.)_


	5. Break My Fall

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

You fought me once but not again

You let me feel your heavy hand

I will clean your fcking mess

And leave no trace of evidence

"That's…" '…a little creepy' was what he wanted to say, but Sora doubted that that would go over well. After all, he was talking to the alpha of a pack of werewolves.

"It's wonderful," Yuffie repeated. "Now you have a family again, and this big lump over here will finally have something to do besides stand around the house all day looking leaderly."

"Hey!" Leon growled.

"You deny it?" Yuffie raised an eyebrow. Leon said nothing. "I didn't think so."

"Maybe we shouldn't tell the others yet," Cid suggested.

"Why not! They'll be thrilled," Yuffie protested.

"The vampires can't find out," Leon put in softly. Both he and Sora were studiously avoiding looking at each other, awkwardness creating an almost physical wall between them. "They'd try even harder to kidnap you."

"Why?" Sora addressed the question to the floor.

"They'd think you were going to be the next alpha," Leon told the ceiling. Surprise finally broke Sora's façade of casualness, and he gaped at Leon.

"Why would they think _that_?"

"You're his closest living relative," Cid explained. "You'd be the logical next choice if Leon ever kicked it." Yuffie rapped her knuckles against the desk loudly enough to make Sora jump. Her only response to his glare was to giggle and fall back on the bed.

"Why wouldn't they just kill me then?" Sora wanted to know.

"We'd just pick a new leader," Cid shrugged. "If you became leader because Leon was dead— " Yuffie knocked her fist on the wall and Sora jumped again. "—And they kidnapped you, we'd try to rescue you. Same reason they always try to kidnap the alpha before trying to kill him. We'd be a leaderless rabble."

"Besides, even with Leon still alive we'd try to rescue you if you were kidnapped," Yuffie added. "Since there's so few of us, we'd either die in the attempt, or be so focused on you that we fail to protect the humans. Wolves are loyal to the death, and pretty damn single-minded."

"Oh," Sora winced. He wondered if Leon ever felt pressured, having that much loyalty directed at him. Sora got stressed out just thinking about it.

"Well, we'd better get you back downstairs before Rikku comes looking for you," Yuffie hopped up. "Come on, little cousin." She dragged him out of the room. "By the way, you're going to have to sleep on the fold-out couch for a while. It's a small house, but Leon and Cloud were talking about adding to it this summer…"

It was only as Yuffie said those words that something hit Sora: he was staying. For good. He had found an older cousin he'd never known he had, and who just so happened to be the alpha of a werewolf pack. He would live with them probably for the rest of his life…

…and he had been talking to Leon, his new cousin, wearing the stupid polo shirt. So much for first impressions.

I am losing you again

Let me out and let me in

Cause you're not alone here

Not at all

Let me belong here

Break my fall

"So what do you and Leon talk about so much?" Rikku asked. "You're up in his room, like, every other day."

"Nothing much," Sora lied, thinking back to the chats he'd had with his cousin. They were mostly centered around school and the future and stuff. "I'm ready, let's go."

"Okay."

It was two weeks after he had found out that he was related to Leon. Today, the alpha had decided that he and Cloud were finally going to work on the addition to the house. The other lycans were scattering to the four winds so that they didn't have to help, except for Cid, who had volunteered on the grounds that he had nothing better to do.

Rikku had convinced Sora to go with her and Yuna to visit his friends like he had promised he would.

"After all, there's not much even _I_ can do to stop fights once that drywall-hammering testosterone gets flowing," she'd said, jerking her thumb at Cloud and Leon over her shoulder.

"That's gross," Yuna had giggled.

"And Leon wouldn't mind you going out if we're with you," Rikku added. "The vampires won't think it's worth the risk."

"Okay, then," he had agreed. At first, looking at both girls' slender frames, he'd been worried that he was too heavy for either of them to carry. He'd changed his mind after Yuna had picked him clear off the ground by his collar with just one hand and tossed him out the door when he mentioned it.

So now he lay on Yuna's slim back, headed for town. In no time they were there. Apparently, super-strength and super-speed were part of the werewolf package, though he had quickly learned that most of them didn't like the word 'werewolf'. It was too Hollywood, they said. What they did was true lycanthropy, not some cheap CG effects.

They stopped for Rikku and Yuna to change back to bipeds, and Sora led the way to the mall's food court. It was a rare Saturday that the group wasn't at the food court, scarfing fried, laughing with their mouths full, and generally fooling around. Sure enough, he soon spotted them at their usual table. No sooner had he set foot in the court, however, than he was hailed by a different table.

Shelter me from this again

Dedicated to the end

Help me break my conscience in

To free us from our innocence

"Well if it isn't the hobo!" a boy hooted. "Come for another whipping?"

"Who's that asshole?" Rikku asked, glaring at the laughing boy.

"That's Seifer," Sora sighed. "I decided to sleep in this warehouse once, but I didn't know it was his gang's territory. They kinda beat me up and ran me off. It's a good thing they don't go to school, or everyone would know I am, was, homeless. Wait, Rikku what are you…!"

Rikku broke off from her companions to march over to Seifer's table. She stuck her face in the other boy's, snarling wolfishly.

"You got a problem?" she asked sweetly. Seifer seemed to find this extremely funny.

"So what if I do? You gonna start cryin' or something?" he laughed.

"Nope," she smiled. "I'm gonna give you a warning: Lay one finger on Sora again and this," she grabbed his can of soda and tossed it in the air. One swipe of her half-turned nails shredded the aluminum cleanly and sent Cola spraying all over. The pieces rained down on Seifer's stunned face. "Is you," she finished. "Have a nice day."

She returned to Yuna, grabbed Sora's arm, and towed him over to the table where his friends had been watching with concern. As he left, Sora heard one of Seifer's buddies exclaim, "That chick had a _knife_!" He suppressed a snicker and greeted his friends.

"What was all that?" Riku waved a french fry at Seifer's table.

"Some thugs threatened Sora," Rikku waved her hand dismissively. "I took care of it."

"It's been two whole weeks, Sora," Selphie complained. "What have you been doing that's more important than us?"

"Nothing exciting," Sora denied. He had decided not to tell them about his newfound family for much the same reason that he hadn't yet told Rikku, Paine, Yuna, Aerith, or Cloud. "Playing cards with YuRiPa, mostly…"

"Yooreepah?" Hayner repeated. "What's that?"

"Ah, it's shorthand for Yuna, Rikku, Paine," Sora replied. "Like a club name or something."

"Riku?" Tidus pointed questioningly at the silver-haired boy.

"No, Rikku with two K's," Rikku corrected. "It's my name. This is Yuna, and Paine is our other friend."

"Nice to meet you," Yuna smiled.

"You look like you've been working out," Kairi observed, looking at Sora's chest.

"Not exactly… Cloud's been trying to teach me how to fight…" Sora scratched his head awkwardly.

"He sucks at it," Rikku finished for him. "But he's getting buffer despite that."

"Not like he had any weight to lose, ya?" Wakka laughed. The group settled down to some good, old-fashioned clowning around, easily encompassing the two pretty werewolves.

They stayed until Kairi's mom called her cell phone, asking what she had been doing all day. Surprised, Sora had discovered that they had been in the mall for over five hours. Rikku, just as surprised as he was, regretfully admitted that Leon would be pissed if they stayed out past sunset, no matter how many 'cousins' were with him. Sora said goodbye to all his friends once again, but this time didn't have the same teary effect since they all knew he'd be coming back.

I am losing you again

Let me out and let me in

Cause you're not alone here

Not at all

Let me belong here

Break my fall

"That was fun," Yuna commented as they exited the mall.

"You've got cool friends, Sora," Rikku grinned.

"I know," he laughed. "I rubbed off on them." Rikku groaned at his narcissism while Yuna giggled.

"Your turn to carry him, Rikku," the brunette pretended to pout. "He's so heavy I thought my spine was going to snap in half!"

"And what a shame that would have been," a new voice put in. Sora started and whirled around, recognizing the voice. There, behind them in the parking lot, was Roxas and his redheaded vampire friend. It was the redhead who had spoken.

"What do _you_ want?" Rikku snarled, half-crouching as if in preparation to spring. Yuna shoved Sora behind her and assumed the same posture, uncharacteristic anger on her face.

"We want to register our annoyance with you," the redhead rolled his green eyes. "Those windows were _expensive_ to replace."

"Duly noted and unrepentant," Rikku snapped. "Now go away."

"We _want_ to tell you that what you're doing is unnecessary," Roxas glared at his friend before returning his attention to the werewolves. "Sora's my friend. I won't hurt him, I won't let them hurt him, and I'm sure he'd rather come back with us, right Sora?"

"N-no…" Sora stuttered. He felt confused. On one hand, Roxas was a bloodsucking reanimated corpse. On the other hand, he really had been Sora's best friend for the longest time. But Leon was his cousin, and he didn't kill people…

"Aw, c'mon Sora," the redhead grinned, showing off needle-sharp fangs. "Don't tell me you're still upset about the hypnotism thing."

"He's not going with you," Rikku snarled. "So back off already!"

"Not happening, sweetie," the redhead shook his head, his grin widening into a fearsome grimace.

"Cover me," Rikku ordered tersely. She began to shift, as quickly as she could. While she was still half-human, the green-eyed vampire pounced faster than Sora would have thought possible, even for a vampire. Yuna spun around and kicked him in his ribcage, defending her helpless friend. Roxas darted around the distracted brunette, also disturbingly quickly, and grabbed Sora's arms.

"Let go!" the boy squirmed but it was like tugging on a stone statue.

"Why are you fighting me?" Roxas sounded surprised.

"You're going to _bite me_!" Sora shouted, kicking at his former friend's knee. Again, it was like kicking solid marble for all the effect it had on his captor. Instead, Roxas began to drag Sora away while Yuna fought with the other vampire and Rikku hurried through her transformation.

"I told you we won't," the blond promised, picking up his pace a bit so that Sora was forced to run as well.

"I'm out of the orphanage; I have a home; what more do you want?" Sora grunted.

"If you're my friend, you aren't staying with those beast-people," Roxas insisted. "They'll lose control and murder you!"

"They've been nice to me, while you've kidnapped me and hypnotized me," Sora argued. Behind him, he could hear the sound of pawsteps as Rikku, now a wolf, chased them. Roxas cursed and ran even faster, his feet barely touching the ground now.

Suddenly, the redheaded vampire was running alongside them, and human footsteps rang out as Yuna gave chase as well.

"You should be grateful, kid," he remarked. "Our leader's gonna kill Roxas when he finds out we're out here against orders." That gave Sora pause for thought. Roxas still cared about him that much? "The name's Axel, by the way. Got it memorized?"

"Shut up and run," Roxas ordered. Unnecessarily, as it turns out. The next moment, two black silhouettes seemed to rise from the shadows to block their way forward. Roxas and Axel halted immediately, looking guilty.

"What, may I ask, are you two doing out here?" one figure asked calmly.

"I'm saving Sora from those wolves," Roxas declared nervously. Sora took the opportunity to redouble his efforts to escape.

"We have spoken on this matter, Number XIII," the figure said. "I have made it clear that if it does not intend to be a donor and you do not intend to turn it that you are to leave it alone." Sora paused for a moment, indignant at being referred to as an 'it'. Rikku and Yuna, now a wolf as well, chose that moment to attack. Both wolves jumped on Roxas, Rikku going for the vampire's face while Yuna tried to pull Sora away without hurting him. Sora ripped free of the blond boy's grasp but toppled forward a moment later as Axel heaved Yuna away from him, tossing her into a parked car.

Sora lay on the ground, frozen. On one side, two dazed and injured wolves snarled. On the other, four black-clad vampires faced off against them. He was caught in the middle.

"Mayday, mayday

Requesting permission to land

I cannot control the plane

We are in danger of crashing."

_What am I doing here? This isn't my fight!_ He wailed internally. How was he supposed to choose between old friends and new ones? How could he pick friends over family, or vice versa? Either choice could get him killed. No matter which one he chose, the other one would come after him time and again. He was in an agony of indecision.

Soon enough, it was decided for him.

Rikku raised her muzzle and howled loud and long. She hadn't been boasting when she had said that she was the best singer; her voice was beautiful. He realized a moment later that she was calling for backup. Could her voice really reach all the way to the farm?

While she howled, Axel and Roxas jumped forward and grabbed one of Sora's arms each, pulling him back. Yuna jumped at the same time, snapping at them, but Roxas pushed her off with a punch to her face. She yelped and hesitated long enough for them to drag Sora away.

"It's over, mutt," Axel panted. "We won. Just go home!" Yuna's response was to reach up and rub her paw on her muzzle, flipping him off doggy-style.

"I grow tired of this disobedience," the vampire Roxas had been speaking to said. "However, I am not one to let these beasts win. If this boy is so important to them…" He reached over and wrenched Sora out of the others' grasp. "Let us make a trade, then, dogs. We will hand over the boy in exchange for your leader."

Rikku broke off howling to suck in a very human gasp. Yuna stopped growling in shock. After a frozen moment, she began to shift and change back to a human. The vampires let her do it.

"What makes you think he's worth our leader?" Yuna demanded, sounding much harsher than Sora had ever heard her. Rikku let out a soft whimper, glancing desperately at Sora hanging from the vampire's grip like a kitten.

"We shall find out, shall we not?" there was a smile in the vampire's voice, though his face was hidden under his hood. "Tomorrow at noon we will make the exchange. In that mall, where there are plenty of witnesses." He pointed.

"You sick, twisted…" Yuna began. She stopped as the vampire shifted his grip from Sora's collar to his neck, his nails digging in and drawing beads of blood.

"If you do not come, or come with more than two people, we will kill it," the vampire's tone grew cold as ice. "Slowly. Think on it."

Yuna and Rikku stood still as statues as they watched the four vampires melt away before their eyes, taking Sora with them. When they had gone, Yuna turned to Rikku in despair.

"What are we going to tell Leon?"

I am losing you again

Let me out and let me in

Cause you're not alone here

Not at all

Let me belong here

Break my fall

Break my fall

Break my fall

Break my fall

Break my fall

Cast away

All the enemies of yesterday

To alleviate

All the memories that come our way

As it turned out, they didn't need to say anything. Their alpha was waiting for them on the front steps, watching the two dejected wolves approach. Sora's absence told all.

"They took him, didn't they?" he demanded coldly. Both wolves nodded; their eyes on the ground, their ears laid flat, their tails between their legs, their bellies pressed to the grass in submission.

"And let me guess, they want to exchange him for me," Leon continued. Again, nods from both wolves. He sighed. "Change back and get in here." He turned away muttering, "Was it too much to ask? I _told_ him to stay here!"

In the living room, the lycans gathered. Catching the somber mood, no one spoke until Leon finally told them.

"Sora's been kidnapped. Again."

"What?"

"How?"

"When?"

"Why?"

"Where?"

The babble of voices was cut off as Leon gestured for Yuna and Rikku to tell them.

"Well, he wanted to visit his friends," Yuna began, her eyes fixed on her knees guiltily. "But when we were leaving the mall, four vampires showed up."

"We fought them, but they got Sora anyway," Rikku recounted. "They said they'd trade him for Leon."

"What?"

"No way!"

"Well, that's it then," Cid spoke up. "Boy's gone. We can't be tradin' him for our leader!"

"We can't just abandon him," Yuffie argued, glancing at Leon. He couldn't defend his cousin without them asking why, so she'd do it for him.

"Are you saying you want us to betray our alpha?" Cloud growled.

"No, not at all, but we could launch another rescue…"

"It would be suicide," Paine said. "They'd be expecting us." There was a long pause.

"We'll double-cross them," Leon finally decided.

"They said they'd kill him if more than two of us came," Yuna warned.

"Two of us will go," Leon explained. "Rikku and me. Once Sora's away from the vamps, Rikku, start singing."

"Singing?" Rikku was confused.

"I doubt you'll be a wolf in a crowded mall," Leon raised an eyebrow. The blonde lycan subsided. "That will be the signal. The rest of you will be wolves waiting around the mall. When you hear her, go in and attack. Our objective is speed and to get away as fast as possible, without unnecessary fighting."

"They'll be expecting this, too, you know," Cloud told him.

"I know, but we have to try," Leon sighed. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

"This may sound like a stupid question, but if it comes down to a choice between saving you or saving Sora, which should we choose?" Yuffie asked, staring into his eyes. Only Leon and Cid knew what she was really asking. _Your cousin, or yourself?_ Leon took a breath and answered.

There's a better life

Now you know that I am on your side

Your beady eyes

Burn a hole right through the back of mine

I am out of time

Sora sat between Roxas and a vampire he didn't know with black hair and sideburns. Other vampires were seated at tables around theirs; even Sora didn't know how many there were. They were all wearing normal clothes instead of black robes, and they blended in perfectly with all the humans.

Sora sat rigidly, having been told that even blinking too quickly would result in immediate death. He didn't know how they would do it, and he didn't particularly want to. All that mattered was that he knew they could and knew they wouldn't hesitate to do it, either. What he didn't know was if Leon would actually show up. Half of him, the noble half, hoped that he would stay away, while the other half, the craven one, wished his cousin would come and save him.

Pretty soon, his craven half rejoiced while his noble one groaned in defeat. Leon and Rikku emerged from the crowd and approached their table. The two werewolves sat opposite the vampires, looking unruffled, as if the whole thing had been their idea.

"You actually came," the vampire with sideburns sounded surprised. "A pity. I was looking forward to some young blood." He clapped a hand on Sora's shoulder, nearly knocking him over and finally causing Leon to start angrily.

"I'm here, leave him alone," the alpha growled. "Sora, did they bite you?"

"No," Sora answered, not daring to shake his head in case that counted towards the instant death he'd been promised. "I'm okay. You shouldn't have come." He was glad that his noble half had control of his mouth instead of the half that was clamoring its gratitude.

I'm an ordinary man

Like everybody else

Just a common counterfeit

I'm an ordinary man

"Now, this is how we'll do things," the black-haired vampire said. "You'll both circle the table at the same time going opposite directions. Once you're on our side, we'll leave. If your friends try anything, our friends kill both of you. Got it?" Leon nodded tersely, Sora still not quite daring to move. The vampire shoved the boy to his feet and he and his cousin began to slowly walk around the table.

The walk seemed to take hours, but eventually, Sora ended up sitting next to Rikku while Leon was in between the two vampires.

"This has been fun, we must do it again sometime," the vampire smiled humorlessly and rose from his seat, Roxas standing along with him. "Remember, you stay there until we're gone." He turned to leave.

"" Rikku jabbered out at the top of her lungs. Sora gaped. Was she singing? The vampire turned back, and all hell broke loose.

People began to scream and run as six humongous wolves charged in through different doors, all headed for the food court. Rikku yanked Sora behind a trash can and began to change, hoping the scant cover would hide them until she grew fangs. The boy cried out as she pulled on his wrist.

He'd been lying when he had said he was okay. His wrist was broken from when he had tried to run for it in the night and one of the vampires had tripped him up so that he fell on it. He hadn't been hurt otherwise, but he had figured that Leon had enough to deal with what with a hostage exchange going on and all.

Rikku cursed clumsily thought an elongating mouth as she saw the angle his hand was bent at. He wouldn't be able to hold on to her with that…

Meanwhile, Leon had taken down the vampire with the sideburns with a powerful haymaker. The rest of the pack fought various vampires as they tried to reach their besieged alpha. Rikku finished transforming and helped Sora onto her back, where he gripped her fur with one hand and his knees, for once not worrying about whether or not he was hurting her.

The sandy wolf hurled herself away from the thick of the fighting, dodging vampires and nearly bucking Sora off more than once. She pelted for the mall doors at the fastest speed she could coax from her legs. Behind her, she could hear other wolves peeling off and running after her. She risked a quick look over her shoulder and saw that Leon was transformed and racing away with them. For a moment, it seemed like they were going to make it.

Hesitate

While the world is just a step away

To recreated

All the innocence that time can take

I am wide awake

But then, her paws hit the floor and squirted out from under her. The young wolf went sprawling on her face, skidding across wet linoleum. Sora was thrown clear, crashing into a yellow 'Caution: Wet Floor' sign. Rikku had a bizarre desire to laugh. If only she had heeded the warning.

She struggled to her paws again, slipping in the water and knocking into a mop that had been abandoned on the floor. She seized a semiconscious Sora by the back of his shirt and tried to drag him away.

A hand reached down and easily ripped the boy out of her jaws, flicking her head and sending her tumbling across the floor in the same motion. She looked up dazedly to see a blonde vampire holding up Sora and gazing at him the same way a hungry person might gaze at a piece of steak. Rikku tried to leap to her feet, but her head spun and she crashed back down. Belatedly, she noticed a throwing knife sticking out of her side. So that was what she'd been hit with.

"Delicious," the vampire licked her lips and, while the pack was too far away to interfere, sank her fangs into Sora's neck. He kicked and screamed, regaining consciousness, and blood dribbled down his shoulder. He swung his good fist at her face, catching her off-guard so that she dropped him, prompting another scream as he fell on his broken wrist.

Just then, Leon leaped over his fallen cousin, howling in fury. The wolf hit her in the chest and knocked her backwards, jaws clamping around her throat. Her arm lifted and she thrust a knife deep into the wolf's side. Leon released his hold on her in favor of seizing Sora, flipping him onto his back, and running out the door with him. The rest of the pack followed, as did the vampires. The vampires stood at the entrance, watching the wolves run without giving chase.

I'm an ordinary man

Like everybody else

Just a common counterfeit

I'm an ordinary man

"It's going to die, you know," the leading vampire called out. His clear voice caused Leon to whirl around mid-stride and snarl explosively. _Like hell he is!_

"It has lost blood," the vampire continued. "Unless it gets more…" He gestured at Sora's pale, limp body expressively. Leon backed away, lowering one ear. _Why tell me that?_

"We can give it blood, can't we?" the lead vampire replied to the unspoken question. There was a murmur of agreement among the other vampires. "Of course, then it would become one of us, but is that worse than its death?"

Leon hesitated, then shook his head back and forth like he was trying to get rid of a fly. The rest of his pack watched as he let Sora slide to the ground and shifted until he was a human capable of speech.

"You will _never_ get your teeth in him," Leon growled. Every wolf except Yuffie and Cid was taken aback by his ferocity. Wordlessly, Leon reached up with one still unchanged paw and cut a slice in his opposite forearm. He knelt and pressed the wound to Sora's mouth, making the boy drink his spilling blood. The vampire's eyes widened. He hadn't expected this…

Leon let Sora drink until the werewolf's cut sealed itself in the rapid way all his wounds healed. As he watched, the two pricks in Sora's own neck closed themselves, his wrist popped back to its usual position.

And then, under the eyes of everyone watching, Leon bent down and sank his teeth into Sora's shoulder.

"He's one of us now," the alpha told the watching vamps, scarlet liquid coating his lips and chin. "And lycans protect their own."

I'm an ordinary man

Like everybody else

Just a common counterfeit

I'm an ordinary man

_(A/N: 'Break My Fall' belongs to Breaking Benjamin and so does 'Ordinary Man'. They're one of my favorite bands. Lots of time breaks here, huh?...)_


	6. Papercut

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

8

Why's it feel like night today?

Something in here's not right today

Why am I so uptight today?

Paranoia's all I got left

Sora was really getting sick of waking up in unfamiliar surroundings in great pain. It wasn't fun, it wasn't going to become a routine, and Sora wanted it to _stop_.

"Hey, little cousin, you awake yet?" Yuffie's voice and annoying nickname penetrated his sleep.

"Namessora," he slurred. "Lemmesleep."

"You've gotta get up, sleepyhead," Yuffie admonished. "The others are worried sick. We weren't sure you were going to make it." This caught Sora's attention.

He opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and sighed in relief. He was back in the farmhouse. Except that that didn't look like the living room ceiling…

He was in Leon's room he realized, in Leon's bed. Yuffie perched at the bed's foot, watching him with bright eyes. But she was a wolf. He had been sure he had heard her talking…

"Good, you're awake," the sleek, black wolf grinned. Sora nearly fell off the bed. Since when could wolves talk?

"Oh, you can hear me now, right?" she seemed to remember something. She spoke more with her eyes and body movement than with actual noises, though there was some of that, too. "That's right. You should come downstairs so we can tell you what happened. They wouldn't all fit in here and the exercise will do you good. Lean on me."

The wolf hopped off the bed with an energy that reassured any doubts Sora had been having over whether this was really Yuffie. The boy climbed out of bed, realizing that all of his pain was coming from his shoulder this time. He remembered breaking his wrist, though, and getting bitten in the neck, not the shoulder…

He stood and slowly made his way down the stairs, Yuffie pressing against his hip so that he wouldn't fall. He didn't really need her help; his shoulder didn't affect his walking, after all, but he was grateful for her concern. It left him free to try and make sense of the tangled thoughts and memories spinning through his head. Still supported by her, he entered the living room.

Just like the first time he'd seen them, Cid, Aerith, Cloud, Yuna, Rikku, Paine, and Leon all sat on various couches and chairs in a circle around the table. As one, they turned to watch Yuffie help Sora across the threshold. The boy sat in a vacant chair between Leon and Aerith, and Yuffie lay down by the couch like a dog, though she snarled softly when Rikku jokingly reached down to pet her.

I don't know what stressed me first

Or how the pressure was fed

But I know just what it feels like

To have a voice in the back of my head

"What happened?" Sora broke the ice.

"We traded you for Leon, remember?" Aerith prompted him gently.

"Yeah… and you all came in and fought the vampires," he recalled. "And Rikku was carrying me away but she fell… and that's all I remember."

"One of the vamps caught you," Rikku told him. "And she bit your neck and drank your blood."

"What?!" he clapped a hand to his neck, unable to find even a scratch. "But… why aren't I a…"

"You're not a vampire because you didn't drink _her_ blood," Yuna explained. "Instead, you would have just died of blood loss. But Leon gave you some of his blood so that you didn't die, and…"

"I bit you," Leon finished. Sora slowly let his hand drop back into his lap, feeling numb. "It was that, or let you die."

"So… I'm a were—I mean, a lycan?" Sora asked, just to make sure. Everyone present nodded.

"There's a chemical agent in our saliva that changes you if it gets into your bloodstream," Yuna elaborated. "Licking a cut would do it, too, but biting is traditional."

"That's why I can understand Yuffie, then."

"We can all understand wolves, and dogs, to a lesser extent," Yuffie confirmed. Nobody gave any indication that they had heard her, but Sora knew that they had.

"The next full moon is tonight," Cloud put in. The import of this statement didn't sink in for a full minute.

"And that's when I'll change?" he finally gasped.

"Yes," Leon nodded. "You might loose control and go wild, you might not. We'll have to wait and see. You might not even change if I didn't hit a vein when I bit. I was too busy to notice."

"Did you tell them about…?"

"No."

"Are we going to…?"

"We kind of have to now, don't we?" Yuffie yapped, amused. "With all that hemming and hawing you're doing. Look at them, they're dying of curiosity!" And so they were.

"Tell us what?" Rikku demanded eagerly.

"Leon's, well, his dad's sister was my mom," Sora admitted. "So he's my older cousin."

"I knew it!" Rikku crowed.

"You did not," Yuna shoved her.

"I knew something was up when Leon said 'him'," Rikku amended. Sora had no idea what she meant by that, but Leon avoided his eyes. He made a mental note and filed the moment away for later examination.

"This is so great!" the blonde lycan gushed.

"So _he's_ our next alpha?" Cloud asked. Sora bristled at his tone. Cloud merely scowled, remembering a certain incident that had occurred last week involving the barn roof, chicken eggs, a can of paint, and a very specific blue-eyed brunet.

"Yes," Leon replied.

Like a face that I hold inside

A face that awakes when I close my eyes

A face that I watch every time I lie

A face that laughs every time I fall

It watches everything

So I know that when it's time to sink or swim

The face inside is here in me

Right underneath my skin

"I have a job again," Aerith said happily. As the 'nanny' of the pack, it was Aerith's job to educate new lycans and train them. Usually, the job was given to the oldest and wisest lycan, but her patience and kind yet strict demeanor left her as the obvious choice to deal with newly made werewolves.

"I feel sorry for him already," Cloud chuckled, momentarily forgetting his dislike of Sora, and startling everyone present. Cloud didn't chuckle. Cloud scowled, Cloud grumbled, Cloud stayed silent and leaned against the wall in the corner. He didn't chuckle. Rikku fumbled for her phone, hoping to get a video of this unnatural phenomenon just to prove it had actually happened, but the moment was over before she'd turned it on.

"You'd better get started teachin' him, then," Cid advised. "You've only got half a day before moonrise."

"First things first," Yuffie snatched Rikku's phone with her teeth and flipped it at Sora. "You've got something to tell your friends, I believe?"

"Yeah," he nodded, wiping wolf saliva off the phone with the hem of his shirt and beginning to dial. After a few rings, it was picked up. "Hey, Kairi, it's me. Yeah, I'm fine. Listen, you're not going to believe this…"

It's like I'm paranoid, looking over my back

It's like a whirlwind inside of my head

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

A couple of hours later saw Sora, Aerith, Riku, and Kairi standing in the pasture, facing each other as if preparing to fight or play some kind of game. Just as Sora had said, Kairi hadn't believed him, and had told everyone else. Leon had refused to let all of them come over again with the full moon so close, so the group had drawn straws, and Riku and Kairi had been picked to come.

"Well?" Riku folded his arms and glared at Aerith. Kairi mimicked his posture. Most of their group was under the impression that Leon's pack was somehow brainwashing Sora, a theory concocted by their resident schizoid: Tidus.

"Don't be so rude, Riku," Sora whined. "I'm telling the truth here!"

"Prove it," Kairi challenged.

"Don't be scared," Aerith warned. "It's a little startling the first time you see it." And she began to turn. Even Sora, by now used to YuRiPa's changes, felt uneasy watching Aerith's sweet face morph into a muzzle loaded with lethal fangs.

Admittedly, when she had finished she looked more like an overgrown Labrador retriever than a wolf. She was the nicest-looking wolf Sora had ever seen. That thought was banished from his head as a memory of the fight at the mall popped up, when he had seen her tearing into vamps alongside Cloud. She may have looked harmless, but she could fight.

Kairi gasped and covered her mouth as the woman shifted before her eyes. Riku took an involuntary step backwards, feeling the aura of natural fear that werewolves seemed to give off.

I know why I've got a face in me

Points out all my mistakes to me

You've got a face on the inside, too

Your paranoia's probably worse

"It's alright, guys," Sora hurried to reassure them. "She's almost done, see?" Sure enough, Aerith sat on her haunches and thumped her tail at them, just like any household dog. "Humans are naturally afraid of lycans, that's all."

"Aren't you?" Kairi asked, staring at how close he was standing to the wolf. Sora glanced down as if surprised and shook his head.

"Nah, I'm used to it, I think. She's still Aerith, after all, she won't hurt you."

"So… she really is a werewolf," Riku breathed. Aerith bridled a little, causing him to take another step back.

"They don't like the 'W' word," Sora told him with a glance at the irritated wolf. "They prefer lycanthrope or just lycan."

"Okay…" he nodded faintly, eyes fixed on Aerith.

"And yes, they're all lycans," Sora answered his question. "And I might be, too."

"Are those men really vampires?" Kairi questioned, suddenly ready to believe. "They were out in daylight, weren't they?"

"That's why they wear the black coats," Aerith told Sora, who relayed her words to his friends. "It protects their skin. If they didn't, they'd shrivel and burn like salted slugs."

_Being a wolf brings out her savage side, doesn't it?_ He thought, telling Riku and Kairi what she had said. They seemed ready to accept that he could understand her, he noted, now that they had physical proof that werewolves existed.

I don't know what set me off first

But I know what I can't stand

Everybody acts like the fact of the matter is

I can't add up to what you can

"We're going to be here," Kairi stated, seemingly randomly. Sora frowned.

"Uh… what?"

"Tonight. The full moon. We're here," Riku told him.

"That's not a good idea," Aerith warned.

"I might go crazy and attack you!" Sora cried. "No, you're not here!"

"You can't make us leave," Kairi insisted stubbornly.

"Wanna bet?" Aerith bared her teeth.

"Threaten us all you want, but Kairi and I are staying," Riku said.

"C'mon guys, think about it," Sora pleaded. "I'll hurt you, or maybe even _bite_ you!"

"Maybe," Kairi conceded.

"There's always a chance," Riku agreed.

"So you'll leave?"

"No."

"No."

"Ugh," Sora groaned, clutching his temples. "You're too stubborn."

"You said yourself that you might not be a we… I mean, a lycan," Riku pointed out.

"I know… but I've got this feeling…" Sora absently reached up and rubbed his sore shoulder. "Why else would my wrist have healed? Why else could I suddenly understand wolves?"

"It could be temporary," Aerith put in. "You might have gotten enough of Leon's saliva in your blood to change you a little, but not all the way. We won't know until tonight. The full moon forces a change on every lycan, young or old, new or veteran. Everyone changes."

The three humans and one lycanthrope stood silently in the field, listening to the wind rush through the grass and watching wooly, gray clouds creep in to cover the sun. Aerith told them that they should get inside before it rained, so they trudged back to the farmhouse. At Sora's suggestion, Aerith gave Kairi a ride. The girl enjoyed it hugely, whooping and encouraging the wolf to run as fast as she could while Sora looked on, a bit shamefaced.

But everybody has a face that they hold inside

A face that awakes when I close my eyes

A face that watches every time they lie

A face that laughs every time they fall

It watches everything

So they know that when it's time to sink or swim

The face inside is watching you too

Right inside your skin

Back at the house, they were mobbed by YuRiPa. The girls insisted that they all go and take a nap, since they'd probably be awake all night. Kairi and Riku were installed on the fold-out couch, both silly with embarrassment at the look on Cid's face when he left the room, winking and leering at them. Sora took his cousin's bed, since Leon and Cloud were both outside working on the house.

He couldn't sleep. Not only because of the hammering and sawing noises coming from outside and the fact that he'd recently been unconscious anyway, but because of the thoughts racing around his head like hyperactive monkeys. Anxiety about his friends' safety if he lost control, uncertainty about whether or not he was a lycan, shame for his cowardly actions that morning, all conspired to keep him lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

_I shouldn't have let them risk themselves like that for me,_ he thought, referring to that morning's fight.

**But they would have killed me if I hadn't.**

_It doesn't matter!_ He argued with the sinister voice in his head. _I'm sick and tired of being the weak one who needs to be rescued._

**Werewolves are stronger.**

_I know that, but if I become one…_

**I'm scared.**

_I'm not scared. I just don't want to hurt anyone._

**I don't want to be a monster.**

_Leon's not a monster; none of them are! I won't be one, either. I might not even be a lycan._

**I don't want things to change. I want to go home.**

_I don't have a home. I don't care if things change._

**I do.**

_I don't!_

**I do.**

_I don't!_

**I do.**

_...I… do…_

_I don't want things to change._

It's like I'm paranoid, looking over my back

It's like a whirlwind inside of my head

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

The face inside is right beneath your skin

The face inside is right beneath your skin

The face inside is right beneath your skin

Night.

The pack of wolves stood in a circle. In the center was a scared boy with blue eyes and spiky brown hair. The wolves stared at him unblinkingly, their eyes glowing in the starlight, their fur ruffling in the breeze. Two other humans stood off to the side, their eyes fixed on the boy in the center, their hair also blowing in the wind.

The sky was covered from horizon to horizon with thick, gray clouds. Not a drop of rain fell, but the chilly breeze discouraged anyone from going outdoors. Through occasional holes in the clouds, early stars beamed their light down bravely, fighting the encroaching darkness. The boy's blue eyes were fixed on the horizon. Not the one where the sun was half-hidden already, but the darkest horizon. A few minutes passed where the breeze stayed steady, scattering some of the clouds, and the sun gave forth one last feeble twinkle before it slipped below the curve of the earth.

The sun goes down

I feel the light betray me

The sun goes down

I feel the light betray me

Now all eyes looked to the horizon. Any moment now…

And a silver glimmer appeared among the blue blackness of the night. The wind freshened, blowing a few wisps of cloud across the view. The light behind the clouds brightened, and a round shape became distinguishable, its rays blocked by the stubborn wisps of vapor.

Sora exhaled softly. Nothing was happening.

_I'm not a lycan after all._

**The moon is blocked.**

_I should still change, right?_

**I don't want to change.**

_I'm not going to. Leon didn't bite me enough._

**Please be true…**

It's like I'm paranoid looking over my back

The sun

It's like a whirlwind inside of my head

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

I feel the light betray me

The wind died out. The clouds hovered as if uncertain whether or not to go on, before obeying the command of a higher-altitude air current and reluctantly relinquishing their stranglehold on the moon's bright light.

The moon, a perfect silver coin, shone its light on the world beneath it, bathing everything in silver-white radiance. The light washed over Sora like a wave of acid despite its benevolent appearance. His stomach bucked and kicked, like it was trying to break free of his body, and the boy fell to his knees as his legs gave way beneath him.

He was changing.

He felt a searing pain shudder up his spine, and a crunching noise that told him his bones were rearranging themselves. It was a million times worse that merely watching the changes happen to someone else. He gagged as his organs tangoed to their new places, gritted his teeth in pain as his nerves and muscles shortened in places and lengthened in others.

But the worst was when his face crawled out farther and farther, until his nose filled a good chunk of his vision. A creepy, crawly, itchy feeling spread across his entire body, and the night air seemed to retreat.

Finally, he stood, steady on four wide paws. The young wolf with spiky, brown fur and eyes bluer than the ocean turned it head towards its new pack. One by one, they threw back their heads and howled, welcoming him home.

It's like I'm paranoid looking over my back

The sun

It's like a whirlwind inside of my head

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

I feel the light betray me

It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within

The sun

It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

_(A/N: 'Papercut' belongs to Linkin Park. I mostly chose it for the 'the sun goes down/I feel the light betray me' line, but the rest fits okay too, I think. A big thanks to my awesome reviewers Rikkamaru and coolmegan123!)_


	7. Animal I Have Become

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

9

I can't escape this hell

So many times I've tried

But I'm still caged inside

Somebody get me through this nightmare

I can't control myself

**People!**

**Hungry!**

**Food!**

Delicious smells assaulted the wolf's nose, bringing a rush of saliva to his mouth. Behind the already-familiar scents of his pack, other scents hovered, weaker scents, more edible…

There! The smells were coming from two humans over there! The wolf didn't pause to think, didn't hesitate.

He threw himself over the heads of his pack, his family, reveling in his powerful muscles. His paws had barely hit the grass before he was leaping again, right onto the chest of the tallest human, feeling it crumple beneath his paws. It smelled so good…

The human was babbling, wailing something in a thin, unmusical voice. The smaller one was… attacking him? It was pulling on his fur and kicking his side, its face soaked with water, even though it wasn't raining.

He turned back to his prey. He would deal with the smaller one later. The empty void of his stomach screamed at him to eat! Eat! _EAT! _

But he couldn't. His pack was watching him, they were coming closer. He had to share? He didn't want to share! He snarled at them sulkily, ignoring the commanding yaps of his alpha. He was hungry. He didn't want to share. This was his kill.

Except that it wasn't dead. It was pummeling at his legs, still bellowing in its ugly human voice.

He grabbed its foreleg in his teeth and ran, feeling something snap, hearing the human cry out piercingly. He wouldn't share. He'd take it far away and eat it himself. If only it would stop struggling…

Without warning, it hit him, hard, in his eye with its uninjured leg! The wolf dropped the human and made a noise halfway between a whine and a snarl, baring his teeth and rubbing at his sore eye with his foreleg at the same time. The human leaped to its feet and bolted. Silly thing. Thinking it could outrun a wolf…

He started to run after it, but a new scent caught his attention. The wind had picked up again, bringing with it new smells borne on the air. He raised his nose and sniffed, drinking in the smells. Some were good, like the smells of his pack, and some were mouthwatering, like the smells of many, many people all living close together in that direction.

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?

No one will ever change this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal

This animal, this animal

One particular smell tore his mind away from the food-smell. It smelled like blood and dead things, but with an undercurrent of ice-cold malice. The smell raised the wolf's hackles and made him sneeze to drive it from his nostrils. The scent stayed, buzzing around his muzzle like an irritating fly. He wanted it gone. It made him upset. It made him want his pack.

**But it won't go away if whatever's making it is still there.**

The thought came to him with an unwolfish clarity. It troubled him; wolves shouldn't have thoughts like that. But at the same time, he saw its sense. The wolf leaped forward, following the hated smell.

He ran as fast as he could, trying to outdistance the sounds of his pack following him. They would be mad for running away with the prey. If he made the bad smell go away, they might forgive him. He didn't want them to be mad at him. He was a good wolf.

He suddenly came across something he recognized. A road, his brain told him. It led to humans. It led to food. It led to the bad smell that had to go away.

He followed the road, not giving a thought to secrecy. If a human tried to attack him, he would eat it. It was as simple as that. He might even eat it if it didn't attack him. He was hungry. So hungry. He wondered idly if the bad smell would taste as awful as it smelled. He hoped not.

The sounds of human screams assailed his sensitive ears. He had entered something he thought was called a city, though he wasn't sure why he thought that. Humans swarmed in and out of tall stone dens all around him, though they fled when they saw the wolf coming. Smart humans. He was hungry. But if he stopped to chase and eat one, he would lose the bad smell. He kept going.

The smell burned his nostrils, its iciness making every sniff almost painful. It drove him crazy. He had to kill it and make the smell go away. Now it was so strong he could barely think through the haze of loathing clouding his mind. It was coming from that den there…

I can't escape myself

So many times I've lied

But there's still rage inside

Somebody get me through this nightmare

I can't control myself

As he prepared to jump at the den's entrance and try to break down the barrier blocking it, a human suddenly came out. The wolf froze, the smell sending spikes of pain through his head. This was no human. It smelled dead. It smelled like decaying flesh and humans' blood. Dead things didn't move. Why was it moving?

The thing stopped when it saw him crouched across the street. It stared at him with wide eyes. It said something, but the wolf didn't listen. Only wolf-speech was worth listening to. Everything else sounded unmelodious and flat in comparison, and what could a human say that would interest him? Humans were food. He was hungry. He wanted the bad smell to go away.

He leaped at the thing that was dead but still moved, opening his jaws wide. It was like hitting a solid wall. At first, the dazed wolf thought he'd missed, but he soon realized that the thing was as solidly unmovable as a marble statue. He felt the coldness of its skin even through his thick fur.

"Sora… is that you?" the thing whispered. The wolf snarled. The thing's ugly voice sounded familiar, but it wasn't his pack, so it didn't matter. He tried to bite it, but it slipped away too fast for him to follow. It stared at him, but it didn't run. The smell burned his brain. His vision was red with hatred. He wanted the bad smell gone.

He attacked again and again, but still the thing evaded his teeth with frustrating ease. It smacked him around a bit, but not enough to injure him or even really hurt him. The wolf howled in fury. Why wouldn't it die? What was it?

"Sora _is that you_?" the thing's voice grew louder, harsher. The wolf growled and rolled his eyes dementedly. Its voice, its smell, its movements: everything about this thing pissed him off beyond the point of sanity. He was hungry.

He whirled around to run away, tail lowered in defeat. His pack would be angry. He hadn't been able to make the bad smell go away. He paused on his way, slowing to a walk, and then stopping altogether. A human huddled in an alley nearby, reeking of terror. It smelled nice. There was time for a snack on the way back.

He stalked forward menacingly, wanting to make sure it didn't have friends waiting to ambush him. But maybe that was giving it too much credit. It was a human, after all, not a wolf. He sprang.

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?

No one will ever change this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal

"Sora!" Something caught him around his middle, spun him around, and used his own momentum to fling the wolf into the side of a building. His breath left him and he cowered on the ground, fearing the wrath of his alpha. His alpha looked human, but the wolf could tell it was him by his smell, which was the same. He was still as strong and as smart as a wolf, he just looked different.

"Sora, control yourself!" his alpha growled. His voice was flatter, but still more pleasant-sounding than most human voices. The wolf groveled on the ground. He didn't want to be in trouble. He was sorry.

"Sora, who are you?" a wolf's voice asked. He looked over. It was the omega, butting in on his apology to the alpha. He snapped at her, but she stood her ground, and his alpha glared at him till he subsided, whining ashamedly.

"Who are you?" the omega repeated. A stupid question. He was a wolf. He was hungry. He was in trouble.

"What's your name?" the bitch persisted. Another stupid question. He was…

**A wolf. Hungry. In trouble.**

_Sora! Sora! Sora!_

The wolf was confused. Why was he thinking such weird thoughts? He was…

**A wolf.**

_Sora!_ His inner voice insisted. _Not a wolf! A human! Sora Hikari!_

But he had paws and fangs and a tail. He wasn't human.

Somebody help me through this nightmare

I can't control myself

Somebody wake me from this nightmare

I can't escape this hell

"Change back, Sora," his alpha ordered. The wolf whined. He didn't want to disobey, but he didn't know what his alpha wanted. "Be a human."

That was impossible. He was…

_Human!_ The voice inside him was getting louder and louder. He thought about walking on two paws without a tail to balance, using his forepaws to write, talking in a flat human voice, eating plants, wearing fake pelts. A million memories and images assaulted the wolf, making him whimper in confusion. He was a wolf. Why did he think this way?

"Sora…" a new, human voice said. It was the human he had been going to eat before he'd smelled the bad smell. It/he was standing there, its/his foreleg/arm dangling limply, brokenly. Its/his breath hissed in pain, but it/he still gazed at the wolf, its/his face wet despite the lack of rain. His eyes were now green, now blue, now turquoise, his hair shining silver like the moonlight.

"Riku!" Sora shouted, his mind rushing back to him. Fiery swords seemed to stab into every inch of his body and, screaming in pain and fighting the urge to hurl, Sora was suddenly a human again, lying shivering on the pavement. "Riku…"

"Sora!" Riku threw himself beside his friend, hugging him tightly with his unbroken arm. Now they were both crying into each others shoulders and Sora was embracing him back. "You broke my arm and my ribs, you bastard," Riku continued in a voice tight with pain. His voice didn't sound so horrible anymore, in fact, it might have been the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Sora sobbed over and over. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."

**I was hungry…**

So what if you can see the darkest side of me?

No one will ever change this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal I have become

Help me believe it's not the real me

Somebody help me tame this animal

This animal I have become

Will you listen to my story?  
It'll just be a minute  
How can I explain?  
Whatever happened here, I never meant to hurt you  
How can I cause you so much pain?

"Sora, are you sure about this?" Aerith pressed. Sora swiped a hand angrily across his face, wiping away the sweat with his sleeve, gritted his teeth, and nodded wordlessly. The older lycan sighed, "Alright, then. Try once more."

The pain was the easiest part to get used to, Sora had realized. Eventually, you became desensitized. Aerith said that the pain was different for every lycan, the same as the control. Some felt nothing; others writhed in agony for hours, and the time it took to get used to it varied as well. Sora was what Cid fondly referred to as 'a hurler', meaning that the transformation made him nauseous.

He scrunched up his face and tried again to imagine his paws running across the grass, the wind in his fur, his wagging tail.

"You're trying too hard again," Aerith instructed calmly. "You have to relax. You won't change if you're all tensed up." Sora exhaled, trying to expel his tension with it, and kept on thinking about fangs and fur and howling.

He hadn't seen Riku or Kairi since the night of the full moon, two nights ago. For an entire day afterward he had been curled up under the sheets of his sofa-bed in a fetal position, refusing to talk, come out, or even eat. He felt like he was dying of guilt for attacking humans, for going to attack the vampires alone, for running from his pack, and most of all for hurting Riku.

Leon had finally dragged him from his nest and threatened a repeat of Cloud's revenge for the famous roof-eggs-and-paint incident if he didn't get off his butt and do something, anything. He had said that the best way to make up for what he'd done was to never let it happen again.

So the last few hours had seen Sora and Aerith in the pasture, practicing. Sora had made no discernable progress. Whenever he finally was able to transform fully, he found himself running for the city, intent on either hunting vamps or eating people. Each time, Aerith would tackle him and scold him and talk him through changing back. Every time was just as difficult as the first.

Now he tried to stay relaxed while thinking wolfish thoughts. Nothing happened. Maybe he was too tired. Changing even once took a great amount of effort for a pup like him. He clenched his fists and thought even more fiercely about howling with the pack and feeling the earth beneath his pads and snarling at the omega. A faint twinge tugged at his insides, but nothing more.

"This isn't working!" he burst out in frustration. "How can I learn to control myself if I can't even turn!"

"Are you scared?" the woman asked gently. He turned to her in bewilderment.

"…of what?"

"Turning into a wolf," she clarified. "Does that scare you?"

"Well, the pain and nausea's no fun," he frowned. "But, yeah, I don't _want_ to hurt anyone. I don't want to forget my name, or hate the vampires…" Aerith raised an eyebrow at that. "I mean, I don't want to hate them because they _smell_ funny, I want to be able to hate them for what they've done, what they're doing, what they want to do! Most of all I don't want to attack my friends. What if I had bitten a little deeper? Riku would have been changed!"

When I say I'm sorry  
Will you believe me?  
Listen to my story  
Say you won't leave me  
When I say I'm sorry  
Can you forgive me?  
When I say I will always be there  
Will you believe?

Will you believe in me?

"Would that have been so terrible?" Aerith probed.

"No! Yes! I don't know!" Sora ran his hands through his hair, trying to express his feelings. "He should have a choice. I was going to die; I would've chosen the same thing Leon did if it were Riku. But he's got a life, a family, a home, friends…"

"You don't?"

"Not the same way. His family, friends, and home don't smell like wet dog every time someone takes a shower," Sora snapped, making Aerith giggle.

"But are you afraid?" she repeated.

"Very, very afraid," he admitted.

"That's what's holding you back," she told him. "You have to want to change in order to change. Do your arms ever move when you don't want them to? No. It works on the same principal."

"But… what if I hurt someone, badly this time?" he whispered. He would never have shown weakness like this in front of his cousin, the other lycans, or even his friends. There was something motherly about Aerith, something that made him able to open up to her like no one he'd ever met.

"I won't let you," she promised. "Trust me, even if you don't trust yourself. Trust that I'll stop you before you so much as go near a human."

"I trust you," he nodded. He would change this time, and Aerith wouldn't let him hurt anyone. His bones began to crunch and a wave of pain swamped him. It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt, but that was only to be expected. After all, pretty much every bone in his body had to change somehow for him to become a wolf.

"Hey, Sora, Aerith!" Yuna came jogging into the pasture just as the spiky-furred wolf stood. He greeted her with a bark and wagged his tail, inviting his packmate to play with him. "Not now, Sora, your friends are here." He cocked his head, not understanding. "Hayner, Pence, Olette, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, remember them?" He tipped his head back the other way, still confused. He lifted his nose and inhaled sharply.

**Hungry.**

All the words that I come up with  
They're like gasoline on flames  
There's no excuse, no explanation  
Believe me if I could undo what I did wrong  
I'd give away all that I own

The smells of humans wafted to his nose, filling his mouth with drool and making his stomach howl like a dying banshee. Before Yuna or Aerith could do anything, he took off for the farmhouse. The two lycans ran after him, but even they couldn't catch the swift-footed werewolf. He sped up even more when he saw Hayner and the rest of them lounging on the front steps. The kids leaped to their feet in shock and fear when they saw the young wolf bearing down on them, slavering wildly.

Under their horrified eyes, Aerith and Yuna, now wolves themselves, pounced on top of him and wrestled Sora to the ground. He clawed and struggled, trying to reach the humans, but the more experienced lycanthropes kept him pinned until he went limp. His body seemed to melt and bubble like boiling water before solidifying into the Sora they all knew.

Aerith and Yuna let him up and the teen turned and fled to the barn. Nobody pursued him when they saw the look on his face. The women went through the same metamorphosis Sora had gone through to end up their usual human selves before the shell-shocked teenagers.

"Maybe now's not the best time…" Yuna sighed.

"I can see that," Hayner choked. He had heard all about the full moon fiasco from Riku, who was in the hospital with multiple fractures in his arm and several cracked ribs. He had convinced the rest of them to drive to the farm and confront Sora about attacking Riku. Deep down, none of them had been able to believe that their sweet, compassionate friend had been capable of turning into a mindless beast. But now they had the proof before their very eyes in the form of Sora fighting to get near them, to taste their blood, to kill them.

Without a single word said between them, they climbed back into the pickup truck Hayner had commandeered from his parents and drove away. Yuna watched them go sadly. She knew that they had come to be reassured, to be told that it was all a mistake, that Sora would never hurt his friend. It killed her for them to have been proved so brutally wrong like that.

When I say I'm sorry  
Will you believe me?  
Listen to my story  
Say you won't leave me  
When I say I'm sorry  
Can you forgive me?  
When I say I will always be there  
Will you believe?

She went to find Sora in the barn. He was curled up in the corner of one of the empty stalls, crying. The girl sat down and put her arms around him wordlessly, letting him cry into her shoulder.

"Why do I do it?" he sniffled. "I want to not hurt them so badly…"

"We all have this problem at first," she soothed him. "We feel like we're going crazy, like there are two different people inside of us: a human and a wolf. It passes, always."

"I hear him!" Sora wailed. "He's not me! I hear him in my head, and I feel so hungry I can't control myself! It's not even a desire to kill; that I could understand. I'm just… ravenous."

"It's alright," she cooed. "It'll be okay." Her hands made soothing circles on his back. She didn't show it, but his words troubled her. She had never heard of such a thing. When she had transformed, she had merely felt icy contempt for all things human. Rikku had said that they made her feel threatened; Paine had said she felt angry at them for killing other wolves. Leon, Cloud, Cid, and Yuffie had all felt bloodlust. Aerith had been the rare one who had never lost control and attacked a human.

But this, this was new. She had never heard of a lycan feeling a physical reaction to changing, most of the side effects were psychological. Physical problems were new and dangerous; who had ever heard of cold medicine for werewolves? She didn't know how to help him. She doubted anyone would.

When he had cried his last tear, the boy let go of her and stood shakily. She watched him exit the barn, heard his footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway as he went towards the house and then straight past it.

If I told you I've been cleaning my soul  
And If I promise you I'll regain control  
Will you open your door?  
And let me in, take me for who I am  
And not for who I've been?

Who I've been

She quickly turned and padded after him, careful to stay hidden. He couldn't go alone, but she knew he didn't want company right now. The girl shadowed him all the way into town, where she was forced to be a human and trail him the old-fashioned way. She followed him to a florist, where she watched him buy a small bundle (not big enough to be a bouquet) of purple hyacinths and amaryllis. Mystified—was he visiting a girl or something?—the girl followed him to the hospital.

Understanding dawned as she saw him talk to the receptionist and go into the elevator. Yuna took the stairs, having overheard the room number the girl at the desk had told him.

Sora exited the elevator and counted off the numbers in his head as he went down the hallway. Doctors and nurses gave him knowing looks as he passed, but he ignored them. They had no idea. Finally, he came to the door. He took a deep breath and shoved the door open. Yuna stayed outside to give him privacy, though he didn't know it.

When I say I'm sorry  
Will you believe me?  
Listen to my story  
Say you won't leave me  
When I say I'm sorry  
Can your forgive me?  
When I say I will always be there  
Will you believe me?

"Huh? Oh, Sora," Riku looked up from where he'd been reading a book in his hospital bed. "What are you—" He was cut off as several flowers were thrust in his face.

"I'mreallyreallysorryIhurtyoubutIswearI'mgettingbetteratitandI'mnevergoingtodoitagain," Sora gasped out all in one breath. Riku took the flowers, looking confused.

"Say that again? Slower, please."

"I'm sorry," Sora repeated, his face crimson from neck to hairline. He felt so stupid bringing flowers, but it was the best way he could think of to show his sincerity. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll never do it again, I promise. And I swear, I'm getting better at changing. Even if it kills me, I'm going to keep practicing until I'm strong. I will never hurt you… my friends… again. I swear."

"Sora…"

The boy was out the door before the silver-haired boy could even begin to reply, his footsteps echoing down the hall as he fled. Riku chuckled. Same old Sora. He looked from his gauze-wrapped arm and chest to the flowers clutched in his hand.

"Thank you, Sora," he smiled at the purple blooms. A passing nurse noticed the plants and smiled at him.

"I can get you some water for those," she offered.

"Thanks," Riku nodded. "That'd be great."

"I'll go get some then," the nurse walked away, her heels clicking on the linoleum, wondering who the lucky girl was sending flowers to the hottie in the hospital. Behind her back, Riku picked out all the hyacinths, leaving only the amaryllis, and threw the violet blooms out of the window, where they fluttered like dying birds before hitting the pavement to be crushed under the tires of passing cars.

When I say I'm sorry  
When I say I'm sorry  
When I say I'm sorry  
When I say I'm sorry

When I say I'm sorry  
Can you forgive me?  
When I say I'll always be there  
Will you believe?

_(A/N: 'Animal I Have Become' is property of Three Days Grace and 'Sorry' is Chris Daughtry's. For those of you who don't know, purple hyacinths represent a plea for forgiveness and amaryllis stand for determination (i.e Sora's determination to become stronger.) Adds a bit of symbolism to the end, huh? Also, it may not seem like it, but I started this fic with the intent of writing a Soriku, though it hasn't been apparent until this chapter… What do you think? Should I continue with it, or pretend the hospital scene never happened?)_


	8. Behind Closed Doors

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

8

Chairs thrown and tables toppled,  
Hands armed with broken bottles,  
Standing no chance to win but,  
We're not running, we're not running.

"Roxas, you've gotta stop this. It's just plain unhealthy."

"I'm not coming out."

"This is stupid! Why are you so fixated on this one guy? You haven't even seen him for two years!"

"He was my only friend."

"So? I'm your friend _now_."

"You aren't Sora."

"Damn right I'm not. I'm not a dog person."

"Not funny."

"It wasn't a joke. Just forget him; he's one of _them_ now."

"He's not!"

"Rox, he turned into a wolf and tried to bite your throat out. He's one of them."

"He's different."

"No, he's not, and you need to get your head out of the past and back into now! He's not your friend, he tried to _kill you_."

"So did you."

"That was different. You were human then, and I was hungry."

"So was he. He said so."

"To you?"

"To Riku."

"Ugh, just let it GO, Roxas!" Axel slammed his head into his friend's shut door in frustration. He had been talking to him through it for the past hour or so, but nothing he said had any effect. The blond vampire hadn't come out once in two days, not even to feed. He was going to die again if he kept this up.

"Listen, I understand the kid was your friend," the Flurry of Dancing Flames made an effort to stay calm. "I get it. What you need to get is that he's a lycan now and there's nothing we can do about it!"

"…you don't get it."

"No, I don't," Axel growled, thumping his head on the door again. "Enlighten me."

"…"

"Roxas, damn it, in FIVE SECONDS I am breaking down this damn door and you are going to eat someone even if I have to shove your teeth in their veins myself!" Axel roared.

"…"

"ONE."

"…it's not that simple…"

"TWO."

"Axel, Xemnas will…"

"I DON'T CARE. THREE."

"…"

"FOUR."

"It's your funeral…"

"FIVE!" Axel slammed his fist into the door, punching straight through the flimsy wood. His fist was followed by his foot, which caught the knob and sent the whole thing crashing into Roxas's bedroom. The redheaded vampire burst through the wreckage like a raging bull, fully prepared to seize his younger friend's hair and drag him out of the house if necessary. What he saw stopped him dead.

There's a point I think we're missing,  
It's in the air we raise our fists in,  
In the smiles we cast each other,  
My sister, my brother.

Roxas's room was painted completely white: walls, floor, ceiling, and furniture, but he had seen that before. What stood out were the tears running down Roxas's pale face and the photograph clutched in his hand. The blond boy held out the photo to Axel.

It was a picture of a man and a woman with a baby in her arms. The baby was obviously Roxas; even at that young age he had a full head of messy, blond hair and deep blue eyes. The man and woman were strangers to Axel. His gaze was drawn to the letters scrawled across the bottom corner of the photo in black pen.

To Marie Hikari, with love.

"Roxas, what does this mean?" Axel asked, looking up. The tears streamed even faster down his friends' face, silently.

"It means… my dad had… an affair… with his mom…" Roxas gulped. "He's my brother, Axel. He's my brother."

About the time we gave up hoping  
We'd ever find these locks still open,  
Stumbling on stones unturned,  
The hurt we feel, we all have earned.  
The lines we cross in search of change,  
but all they see is treason.

Although we have no obligation to stay alive  
On broken backs we beg for mercy, we will survive  
Break out

I won't be left here  
Behind closed doors.

Riku was let out of the hospital the next day with strict instructions to take it easy for a few weeks. His parents mostly made him stay in the house, treating him like he would break at any moment. His friends were allowed over, though, so he wasn't too pissed about it.

At that moment, Kairi, Pence, and Olette were sitting with him in his basement, trying to escape the heat of the day. Wakka, Selphie, and Tidus had gone to a blitzball game together and Hayner was fighting in a Struggle tournament. So it was just the four of them sitting around watching old horror movies that didn't scare toddlers because there was nothing else on.

"Oh, come on," Pence groaned. "They're in those bushes! Is everyone in this movie an idiot?" There was a cheesy scream and the sound of a revving chainsaw from the television. "Told you so."

"The producers could have at least made an effort at making it look real," Kairi snorted scornfully. "If that blood isn't ketchup I don't know what is."

"Why are we watching this again?" Olette asked no one in particular.

"I don't know. I'll be right back," Pence got off the couch and headed down the hall in the direction of the bathroom.

"Hey, Riku, you've been awfully quiet," Olette noticed.

"What's wrong? Scared of the terrible special effects?" Kairi snickered.

"What? Oh. No. Just… thinking," Riku replied distractedly.

"You're staring at those flowers again," Olette accused.

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are," Kairi giggled. "Where'd you get those, anyway?"

"Sora…" Riku murmured. Both girls exchanged glances.

"Sora gave you flowers," Kairi half-said, half-asked.

"Yeah. He was apologizing for this," here Riku gestured at his ribs with his unbroken arm. "He said he'd keep practicing even if it killed him."

"I'm sure he's alright," Olette reassured him. "Leon wouldn't let anything happen to him."

"I'm not scared of him getting hurt," Riku snapped. "I'm scared of him hurting himself. He's changed. It's more than lycanthropy; he's a different person now."

"Change is good, Riku," Kairi reminded him. "Would you rather that he never found his family, that he was still living on the streets without us knowing?"

"Not this kind of change," the silver-hared boy denied. "Are you really okay with this? He's going places we can't follow. He's leaving us behind."

"Riku, he's not leaving us behind," Olette put her hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

"I hate it," he spat, suddenly furious. "I _hate_ thinking that he's somewhere out on that farm turning into a wolf over and over again while somewhere there's a house full of vampires just waiting to kill him."

Bonfires burn like beacons,  
Guiding the lost and weakened.  
Flames dance on crashing waves,  
Guiding ships who've gone astray

"If he's turning into a wolf, that's his decision, not yours," Kairi said firmly. "He's the wer—the lycan."

"And he's living with some of the only people in the world who could possibly protect him from the vampires," Olette pointed out. "He couldn't be any safer. They don't even know where he is."

"Why not?"

"Huh?" the girls were confused. Riku sat up, suddenly inspired.

"Sora led us right to the vampires' hideout the night of the full moon, didn't he? And before that, Leon's pack broke into their hideout and rescued Sora. If they know where the vampires are, why don't they just attack them and drive them out and be done with it?"

"There are only a few of them," Kairi said. "To take on so many vampires would be suicidal. Sora told us that they were losing the war."

"But that's just because they're fighting it alone," Riku said. "What about us? What about humans? Aren't we what this war is about anyway? Why can't we fight for ourselves?" Olette and Kairi looked at each other and shrugged. Neither one had an answer.

"Exactly!" Riku cried triumphantly. "If we fought with Sora instead of just being dead weights…"

"Riku, you aren't seriously thinking about attacking those vampires, are you?" Olette gasped. "You can't, you're hurt!" Riku merely looked down and grumbled unintelligibly.

"That's it, we're spending the night," Kairi decided. "We're gonna keep a close eye on you till you realized how crazy that idea is." Pence chose that moment to reenter the room, wiping his hands on the hem of his shirt. He looked from Kairi's determined face to Olette's shocked one to Riku's rebellious expression.

"Uh, what'd I miss?"

Time out, let's stop and think this through,  
We've all got better things to do,  
Than talk in circles, run in place,  
Answers inches from our face.

Although we have no obligation to stay alive  
On broken backs we beg for mercy, we will survive  
Break out

I won't be left here  
Behind closed doors.

Sora collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, utterly spent. He had passed another day with Aerith in the pasture, practicing his transformations. He was at the point where he could change at will, though he changed very slowly and was incapacitated by pain and nausea for a little while afterwards. And he still went crazy with hunger whenever he was a wolf.

Even now he was starving. The blue-eyed lycan stood and opened the fridge, searching for food. He grabbed a packet of ham out of the deli drawer and, as an afterthought, took a few slices of bread from the pantry.

In a matter of moments, Sora had created three things loosely classified under the word 'sandwiches', which were really just stacks of ham between pieces of bread. He wolfed these down like he hadn't eaten in days.

It wasn't enough. Even after all three sandwiches were gone and even the crumbs had been eaten, Sora was still hungry. He growled in frustration. What was wrong with him? He was human now. He shouldn't be feeling this hunger.

**I'm part of you.**

_No you aren't,_ Sora mentally shouted at the dark, hungry part of himself. _You're a byproduct of this stupid lycanthropy. You aren't real and you aren't me!_

**I'm your other half.**

_You aren't._

**Ask Leon.**

The thought hit him like a thunderbolt. Why not ask Leon? He was older, more experienced in this kind of thing. He would know if these voices inside of him were normal or not.

With this idea in mind, the boy climbed the stairs to Leon's room. Just as he raised his hand to knock, he heard voices from within. Someone else was in his room. Sora paused, listening, trying to identify the speakers.

Black eyes, broken fingers,  
Blood drips and I let it run  
down my lips into my swollen gums.  
When hope is non-existent,  
Our instincts all scream "Run",  
We never turn our backs or even bite our tongues.

"It just doesn't make any sense," Leon was saying. "Vampires can't have kids."

"This one did, somehow." That voice was Cid's; there was no mistaking it.

"Maybe she had him before she was turned," a bright voice suggested. Yuffie. "Or maybe she was turned while she was pregnant."

"Wouldn't that make the child a vampire, too?" Leon asked.

"We don't know," Cid grunted. "We're their sworn enemies. They don't exactly hand out this information, y'know."

"But if his father was a lycan, wouldn't that make him one, too, automatically?" Yuffie questioned. Her voice sounded dangerously close to the door. Sora jerked back, realizing that he had been eavesdropping unintentionally. But now he was curious. What were they talking about? The boy darted into the room YuRiPa slept in, which shared a wall with Leon's room. He discovered that from here, he could hear their voices just as well as in the hallway.

"Yes. If even one parent is a lycan, so is the child," Leon replied.

"What we don't know is how lycan genes would react with vampire ones," Cid put in. "If one parent was a vamp and the other a lycan, we have no idea if the kid would be one, the other, both, or even neither. Except that vampires can't reproduce."

"If they could, we'd have tiny bloodsucking infants that never got any bigger running around," Yuffie giggled. "Or would they even grow into infants?"

Although we have no obligation to stay alive  
On broken backs we beg for mercy, we will survive  
Break out

I won't be left here  
Behind closed doors.

"It's not possible," Leon insisted. "Vampires can't have children."

"Alright, let's say this," Cid began. "Say the woman was a human and the man was a lycan. Say the woman was turned while she was pregnant. She'd still have the kid; the only question would be what kind of kid it would be: pup, vamp, or child."

"Maybe that's why Sora's so hungry," Leon guessed. "Maybe he's craving blood."

Sora staggered back, crashing into Rikku's bed. He didn't care. He didn't feel it. They were talking about him. They thought his mom was a vampire. They thought he was hungry for…

He turned and fled the room, letting the door slam behind him and pounding down the stairs and out the front door like all the vampires in the world were chasing him. A moment after he had left, Leon, Yuffie, and Cid burst out of the room, staring at the boy's back as he disappeared.

"He heard us…" Cid realized. "He heard you say he wanted blood." Leon groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Yuffie shifted, changing into a sleek-furred black wolf and charging after Sora.

"She won't catch him, y'know," Cid remarked. "Kid's the fastest wolf I ever laid eyes on. He's almost as fast as a—"

"A vampire," Leon finished. "I know."

Although we have no obligation to stay alive  
On broken backs we beg for mercy, we will survive  
Break out

I won't be left here  
Behind closed doors.

_(A/N: Ooh, suspense! Where is Sora going? Is he really half-vampire? And what's with Riku and Roxas? All shall be revealed in the next chapter! 'Behind Closed Doors' belongs to Rise Against, a band I am rapidly falling in love with.)_


	9. Tip The Scales

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

9

Are we so alone

So distant, so forgotten

As we think ourselves to be?

These are our lives

But did they ever even matter?

Are we worth remembering?

Sora ran until his feet hurt and his breath came in short, painful gasps. He could run faster as a wolf, but he wasn't sure if he'd be able to transform with his mind in such turmoil. If he were able to, he would welcome the mindless instincts, the simple way his animal brain saw things, the screaming hunger. Because it would let him forget what he had heard, what he knew.

His heart, mind, and stomach all howled for the same thing: peace, quiet, an end to the pain. The setting sun painted the sky a riot of colors, reflecting his chaotic mind. Blue, red, black, yellow: all colors blended in ways they weren't supposed to, silently strangling each other until everything faded to a uniform shade of gray, giving new meaning to the phrase 'dying light'.

The boy finally stopped. His chest bucked and heaved like bellows frantically bailing water from a sinking ship as he doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. He'd run farther than he'd ever run in his life, and faster than he'd ever run, even while fleeing the cops. It wasn't until he looked up that he saw where his traitorous feet had taken him.

He was in a park. Not just any park, either, but the one his parents' bodies had been found in. Slowly, his physical fatigue becoming lost in his mental exhaustion, Sora stood up straight, looking around to get his bearings. He took a path leading to the left, veering off the dirt path at the stone fountain, pushing through the holly bushes, into a stretch of bare grass. His feet paused and stumbled but still carried him forward despite his reluctance.

He finally halted at a patch of bare, burnt dirt ringed by thorny weeds marring the smooth lawn. Sora knelt down and burrowed his hands a little ways into the dirt, bringing out a heart-shaped piece of white quartz with veins of palest red. He wiped the earth from its surface, remembering the day he had found the stone in this very park. He had run to this spot, so excited, to show to his parents. He had been hit for running off later when he returned to the orphanage, but even that hadn't diminished his happiness. It was the perfect gift for his parents, too soon forgotten.

They hadn't had a will. Neither one had written down what they wanted to happen when they died. That was why he had ended up a penniless orphan in an orphanage, even though his parents had been relatively well-off. He still had no idea where all their stuff had gone. He didn't even have any idea where their bodies were buried, or where their ashes were if they had been cremated. No one had held a funeral except one lonely boy bereft of the only life he'd ever known, left to grieve alone by a patch of dirt in a public park.

These machines feed on the tears

Of broken lives and dying dreams

We're throwing wrenches in the gears

Our lives will not be lived in vain

At first, he'd been glad that no grass had grown on the spot. It was proof that they had been there, that he hadn't dreamed the first six years of his life. Roxas had said the same thing when Sora had brought him here to see what he thought of as his parents' grave.

Now it irked him. Did no flowers grow on the resting spot of the living damned? Was his mother the reason only weeds grew here on this scorched earth? Did no one think she deserved better than a grungy piece of quartz except for one boy?

"People avoid this spot, you know," he said aloud, addressing the rock in his hands. "They think it's bad luck, that you'll get mugged or murdered or something. It wasn't like that before you two died. Before that, it was a spot for couples to hide from passing people. Now look at it. Abandoned and dirty. I'll bet homeless people like I was come here and sleep where you did, except that they wake up while you're still dreaming. Do you ever dream of me?"

The stone didn't answer. It was just a bit of rock. It couldn't hold all the feelings, all the memories he had filled it with. They were too much for a person to hold, much less a single oddly-shaped piece of rubble.

"I know you're there," Sora said. "Someone's always there, these days, trying to give me privacy or something. They think it's somehow better for me to pretend I'm not being watched than to come out and say something."

"Would it make a difference?" Roxas stepped from the holly bushes, his hair glowing like a golden halo around his head in the fading evening.

"It would put me out of my suspense wondering who's watching this time," Sora replied, still not looking. He could smell the icy, dead smell of vampires, couldn't hear breath or heartbeat in the body behind him. He knew it was Roxas.

"Who else would know where you'd be?" the blond vampire crouched next to him, gently touching the burnt earth.

"But how did you know I left the… pack?" Sora asked, skirting the word 'farm'. As mixed as his feelings were about werewolves right then, he didn't want to betray them.

"I was out hunting when I smelled you," Roxas answered. "There's a black wolf following you, by the way."

"I know, I smelled her, too," Sora mumbled distractedly. There was an awkward pause, each boy waiting for the other to say something.

"Aren't you going to try to kidnap me again?" Sora finally asked.

"Can't we just talk?"

"It would be a first."

"…I'm sorry," Roxas looked away. "I found something a few days ago."

"What?" Sora asked just to ask, not really caring.

"I found a box of things in the attic. The house our coven's living in is where I used to live with my parents before they died. Nine years ago," Roxas hesitated, unsure how to go on.

"So, what did you find?" Sora finally looked up, worried. It wasn't like Roxas to beat around the bush like this. Something was up.

"It was a box of my parents' things, like photo albums," the blond boy continued. "There were pictures of my parents… and of yours."

"So they knew each other?" Sora frowned, confused. Roxas wanted to laugh at his naïveté. His next words would rock the poor boy's world.

"No, stupid. My mom was Marie Leonheart."

When this is all said and done

We spent this life on the run

Judged by the company we keep

Our language buried inside

These lungs that keep us alive

We breathe so selfishly

"That's impossible!" Sora leaped to his feet. "I'm an only child!"

"She was Marie _Leonheart_," Roxas repeated. "Not Marie Hikari. My dad had an affair with her before she married your dad and had you. We're half-brothers. Didn't you ever wonder why we look so much alike?"

"But… she was a vampire," Sora's legs gave way and he sat down, hard, dropping his heart-stone. "Leon said vampires don't reproduce."

"She was a what?" Roxas raised an eyebrow. "She wasn't a vamp when she had me, that's for sure. I was one hundred percent human before Axel got me."

"My dad was a lycan," Sora continued, ignoring his friend/brother.

"That doesn't make any sense," Roxas protested. "Lycans and vampires don't interbreed, especially not when vampires can't even have kids!"

"I_ know_ it doesn't make any sense!" Sora shouted, gripping his hair in his hands and yanking. "All I know is that ever since I turned into a wolf I've been hungry. So hungry. Leon thinks I want blood. Do you get hungry when you need blood? Does everything you eat make you hungrier until you're ready to kill the first human you see?" He looked up pleadingly. He wanted to be told 'no'. He wanted Roxas to laugh and say that that wasn't how it worked, and that he had nothing to worry about because he definitely wasn't a vampire.

Instead, the blond boy's pale face turned even paler, somehow. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Finally, he managed one single word.

"Yes."

Promises we plan to break

Are made in whispered voices

Cause our despair knows many names

We make mistakes, but we apologize with roses

We never stop to smell along the way

These machines feed on the tears

Of broken lives and dying dreams

We're throwing wrenches in the gears

Our lives will not be lived in vain

Yuffie trotted along with her nose to the ground, sniffing out Sora's scent trail. She followed him into the town, keeping to the shadows. Most people who saw her assumed that she was a dog and let her be, so she was able to keep up a pretty decent pace.

The young lycan's trail led into a park. Yuffie guessed where he was headed before she even got there, her fur coat protecting her from the spiky leaves as she shouldered her way through the holly bushes.

He had been here, the scent said, but he wasn't here anymore. This much she saw from the deserted patch of what had once been grass. Even now, the stench of burnt flesh lingered in the blackened dirt. Yuffie saw a freshly turned section of earth and nosed it, curious. Her movements rooted up a heart-shaped piece of white quartz veined with pale red threads. The wolf sniffed it once and reburied it. Sora had definitely been here not long ago.

But there was another scent, one that worried her. It was a smell of decaying things, of graveyard soil and ice-cold gravestones. It was the smell of vampires. But only one, and there was no signs of struggle in the surrounding grass. Perhaps they had missed each other.

Yuffie caught Sora's trail leading away from the bushes, and she followed it dutifully. What puzzled her was the still-strong vampire scent. Was it following him? She hurried, breaking into a ground-eating lope. She had to get to Sora before the vampire did.

The trail grew fresher and fresher as she gained on the boy, until she finally saw him. She flattened herself against the wall of a storefront, her black fur blending in with the shadows. Ahead, Sora seemed to be doing the same thing. She crept closer, trying to see what he was doing.

She froze in her tracks. The vampire Roxas was there, too, showing Sora how to stay hidden in the shadows. The two snuck along the outside of what she now saw was a hospital building until they came to a window. There, Roxas fluidly slipped inside, wrenching the locked window open so that the lock popped right out of the frame easily. Sora loitered outside, looking around anxiously.

When this is all said and done

We spent this life on the run

Judged by the company we keep

Our language buried inside

These lungs that keep us alive

We breathe so selfishly

After a few minutes, Roxas reappeared, holding something in both hands. He jumped down and the two ran off with vampiric agility. Yuffie galloped after them, suspicion warring with curiosity in her head. What was Sora doing with this vampire, and why wasn't Roxas trying to kidnap or kill Sora like usual?

She trailed the two back to the park, where they squatted on the patch of dirt where Sora's parents had died. The wolf lurked in the holly bushes, watching them closely.

"See? Just like I told you," Roxas was saying. "Easy."

"Yeah…" Sora glanced around, looking uncomfortable.

"It's not that bad," the blond vampire assured him. "Really it isn't. You get used to it after a while."

"The stealing or the feeding?" Sora raised an eyebrow. Yuffie blinked and pawed at her ear. She must have heard them wrong. What did Sora mean by 'feeding'?

"Both," Roxas replied, tossing him a packet of something. "Besides, some of us don't steal it."

"I'm not sure about this," Sora caught the packet gingerly, as if it were a bomb.

"You were all for it when I suggested it," Roxas countered. Then, cajolingly, "C'mon, aren't you hungry? Hmm?"

"Ravenous," Sora admitted. Then, steeling himself, he poked a hole into the packet he was holding. The aroma of fresh blood drifted to Yuffie's nose, and she suddenly understood.

They had stolen blood from the hospital. Sora was hungry. He was going to drink blood. Her body froze up with shock, rendering her helpless to do anything to stop what was playing out under her horrified gaze.

Sora lifted the packet to his lips, hesitated a moment, and then tipped it back.

We fell from the sky today

We melt into balls of clay

We sell ourselves every day

Don't tell me how to live this way

His throat worked as he gulped down the viscous liquid, trickles of red appearing at the corners of his mouth. Roxas reached over, laughing, and pried the boy's fingers apart.

"Slow down, there, little brother," he chuckled. "You'll choke or something!" He finally succeeded in wresting the little bag of blood away from Sora, who hissed and made a wild grab for it. "Whoa, thirsty little sucker, aren't you? Here, but drink it slowly this time!" He gave the packet back to Sora, who obediently drank it slower than before.

"That…" Sora smacked his lips and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand once he'd finished. "…was so good…"

"It always is after you haven't fed in a while," Roxas told him. "And from what I've heard, you haven't fed your entire life."

"Unless sucking on a cut finger counts," Sora put in. "Which I highly doubt."

"So what are you going to do now?" Roxas asked, tearing into a packet of blood for himself. "I mean, now that you've gotta feed. Will you tell your werewolf friends?"

"Lycan," Sora corrected him. "And I don't know. They already suspect I need it, which is why I came out here in the first place. So I guess I'll just go home and see how things play out."

"'Home'?" Roxas repeated. "You think of that place as home?"

"Well, yeah, I'm going to live there the rest of my life, aren't I?" Sora laughed. And then, to Yuffie's growing horror, he then proceeded to tell Roxas all about his relationship with Leon and how he would be the next alpha. Roxas listened intently, still sucking on the bag of blood absently.

Pushed so far, to the edge

We teeter just on the brink

You can lead me to the bloodbath

But you can't make me drink

"You won't tell your coven, will you?" Sora finished anxiously.

"Of course not," Roxas leaned over and ruffled the boy's hair fondly. "You're my little brother. I'm not going to let them kill you."

"Half brother," Sora grumbled, re-mussing his hair back to its usual spikiness. Yuffie realized that she had stopped breathing. She inhaled, choking a little on the overpowering reek of vampire.

"By the way, what are you doing in those bushes…" Yuffie froze as Roxas craned his neck. "…Axel?" She breathed a sigh of relief, but then stiffened as she noticed another vampire entering the secluded spot. No wonder the smell had been so strong.

"Making sure you were finally drinking something," Axel replied, folding himself down beside the shorter vampire.

"So you heard about Leon and everything?" Sora sighed, not really alarmed by the man's presence. He'd smelled him lurking in the bushes as well. "And I assume Roxas told you about us?"

"Yes and yes," Axel winked. "Your secret's safe with me, kid. I don't want Roxas mad at me."

"Okay, then as long as we're divulging secrets…" Sora twisted around to look Yuffie right in the eyes. "You didn't honestly think I didn't notice you following me, did ya?"

"I hoped," she muttered, stepping out into the open. "Leon's going to kill you when you get back, you know."

"No, he won't," Sora contradicted her. "Because he's not going to know about this, _right_?" Axel and Roxas looked between the boy and the (to their ears) silent wolf in bemusement.

"You can't expect me not to tell him!" Yuffie protested. "He's your cousin; he's your alpha! We can't keep secrets from him."

"Well we're going to keep this one," Sora said firmly. "What's so awful anyway? I'm not killing anyone to get the blood."

"You might be!" the black wolf bristled. "What if there's someone in the hospital dying of blood loss and the only O-type blood the hospital had was stolen by you?"

"I'll only steal A-type, then," Sora replied calmly. "It's no big deal, really."

"We'll make sure he's got enough blood, and we'll keep the coven from trying to kidnap him again," Roxas put in, guessing the general gist of the conversation. "All you have to do is not tell and cover for him when he comes to pick it up, okay?" Yuffie grumbled, laying her ears flat reluctantly. She didn't like this at all. But if Sora would die without blood, then…

"But you've lived all this time without blood," she tried one last time. "What makes you think you need it _now_?"

"I think the transformations did it," Sora thought aloud, looking up at the dark sky. "Kind of like puberty or something. It triggered chemicals in my body or something. I was never able to run that fast before, either, or turn into a ginormous wolf."

"Well, as lovely as this chat has been, I think it's time to wrap things up," Axel clapped his hands with false cheerfulness. "It's late, the coven will be coming out any minute now, and little lycans need their sleep. So… shall we?" Yuffie snarled at him.

"She says you're lucky she doesn't tear you to pieces," Sora translated.

"I wholeheartedly agree," Axel rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Rox, let's get out of here."

"I'll see you later, Sora," Roxas clasped his shoulder affectionately and shoved his way through the bushes behind his redheaded friend. Sora smiled. There was none of the newly-discovered familial awkwardness with Roxas like there had been with Leon. They had been friends for so long, being brothers was only a small step to take. Leon had been a total stranger, still was, truth be told.

"Let's go, Yuffie," he grinned. This time when he became a wolf, there was none of the screaming hunger there had been before. He followed Yuffie tamely away from the town and back to the farm. Music was supposed to soothe the savage beast, but, apparently, the blood of innocents worked, too.

As these machines feed on the tears

Of broken lives and dying dreams

We're throwing wrenches in the gears

Our lives will not be lived in vain

Our lives will not be lived in vain

_(A/N: 'Tip the Scales' belongs to Rise Against, and Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix/Disney, not me.)_


	10. Dead Wrong

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

10

If only I knew what I know  
I'd make it a point to say so  
To everyone that got me here  
And everyone that made it

"How was the hunting tonight?" a man with long, silver hair inquired, leaning back in his chair.

"It went well," the blue-haired man who had just entered the room replied, settling into a chair across the table from the man with silver hair. They sat in a small library that also acted as a study. Small windows admitted only thin beams of light into the dusty room, but neither man minded. They saw as well in the dark as in the light. It was part of being vampires.

"Though the humans are starting to notice increased crime rates," the blue-haired man continued. "They believe it to be the work of a gang. They have even started blaming theft on this imaginary 'gang'."

"Why would they do that?" the man with silver hair asked, lifting one eyebrow.

"They have noticed how all of the 'gang's victims have no blood," the scarred man answered. "And the theft was of donated blood packets from a hospital."

"Hmm," the man with silver hair hummed contemplatively. He was Xemnas, the leader of the vampire coven to which Roxas and Axel belonged. The man sitting across from him was Saïx, one of his trusted subordinates. "Is our coven responsible, or do we have rival vampires in the area?"

"I believe it was the newest of our coven, Roxas," Saïx replied. "He has been sneaking out every morning for the past week, claiming to be searching for the werewolves' hideout, or hunting in the morning to 'throw the humans off'. But Axel goes with him every time and his outings always coincide with the disappearance of more blood from the hospital."

"Interesting…" Xemnas mused. "Do you think it has anything to do with his previous obsession with that human?"

"How can it? The brat is a lycan now," Saïx shrugged.

"Even so, we cannot rule out the possibility," the vampire nodded, having come to a decision. "The next time he leaves, instruct Larxene to follow him…"

"Larxene?" the scarred vampire blinked, nonplussed. "Wouldn't Zexion be better suited for that? His specialty is stealth and illusions, after all."

"You did not let me finish," Xemnas glanced at his fellow vampire irritably. "While Zexion may be proficient at spells and illusions, Larxene is as swift and lethal as the lightning she commands. As I said: instruct Larxene to follow him and kill whoever he is meeting with. And if Roxas fights back, she is to kill him as well."

Clear I was dead wrong all along  
You said it for my sake  
That I would not lose my way  
When I was astray ...

Sora practically skipped into the kitchen. He stuck his head into the fridge, hunting for meat. Rikku gave him an odd look from where she sat at the table, eating her own breakfast of instant Eggo waffles.

"You seem happy today," she commented. Sora's thoughts were jerked back to reality, cutting off the tune he'd been absentmindedly humming as he constructed one of his famous meat sandwiches. As the name implied, Sora's meat sandwiches consisted entirely of whatever animal products they had in the house shoved between two slices of bread. Today it was deli turkey and leftover roast beef on rye.

"You've been like that all week," the blonde lycan continued. "What's up? You in love or something?"

"What?!" Sora nearly choked on his 'sandwich'. "No! Where'd you get that idea? I'm just in a good mood, that's all."

"Uh-huh," Rikku was unconvinced. "You don't start humming 'Bubbly' by Colby Calliat because you're 'just in a good mood'. Unless you're gay or something. Sora, are you…"

"Finish that question and the next ingredient in this sandwich will be _you_," Sora growled.

"Alright, alright," she laughed. "But seriously, you've been in such a good mood lately and Yuffie's always in such a bad one! She nearly ripped my tail off when I stepped on her paws yesterday. What's gotten into you two?"

"I dunno," the brunet shrugged. "Maybe she's PMSing."

"For this long? I doubt it," Rikku shook her head, her expression skeptical. "And boys aren't supposed to ask girls if they're PMSing, you know. It's not polite." Sora scoffed at that.

"We're allowed to ask them whatever we want," he corrected. "The problem comes if they really _are_ PMSing…"

"You're stupid, and we've gotten off-topic here," Rikku eyed him askance. "You two are hiding something, aren't you?"

"Nope, not a thing," Sora gulped down the rest of his breakfast. "I'll see you later; I'm going out running for a while."

"Who's going with you?" Rikku asked automatically. It was habit: Sora never went outside alone. Even if the vampires had been strangely quiet lately.

"Aw, Rikku," the boy whined. "I'm just going for a quick run! I'll be a wolf and everything. They won't bother me."

"Who's going with you?" the girl repeated sternly. He groaned a little more, but the blonde lycanthrope was firm.

"Ugh, fine, I'll see if Yuffie's free," he finally gave up.

"You do that." Rikku turned back to her waffles as the young boy huffed and slammed out the door. She frowned at the syrupy mess on her plate. She _knew_ Sora had been acting strangely for the last few days, but she couldn't imagine what it was. Yuffie seemed to be in on it, but she had been such a grump that it was impossible to get any info out of her.

_I'll talk to Leon about it,_ she decided. _He's the one to ask about anything involving Sora._ This plan in mind, Rikku happily dug into her waffles.

I'm doing the best that I could.  
Trying my best to be understood  
Maybe I'm changing slowly  
I get out, turn around if only I...

"Should we be doing this in daylight?" Yuffie called to Sora over the wind.

"Why not?" the brown wolf yipped back. "Roxas and Axel have their coats to protect them, and no one goes vampire-hunting in the morning!"

The two wolves ran along the edges of the city, on their way to meet Roxas and Axel. Since the night Sora had first discovered his need for blood, both Yuffie and Axel had refused to let the brothers meet without them.

The pair soon came to the beach. This stretched of it was cliffy and gravely, and thusly deserted even on a sunny weekend like that morning. Simultaneously, they wheeled around to gallop alongside the shore until they reached a spur of land jutting out into the sea, creating a kind of cove.

Sora splashed into the shallows unhesitatingly, reveling in the cool feeling of the water against his fur and the silky sand on his paws. Yuffie followed, more reluctantly, hating the slimy weeds that clung to her legs and the salt that dried out her skin.

The two canines splashed a little ways along the spur until the water receded once more. There, an overhang at the edge of the spur of land created a kind of sheltered area that couldn't strictly be called a cave because of the lack of walls. Two black-swathed figures waited there.

"Roxas!" Sora yipped in pleasure, bounding forward. The blond vampire turned at the yip, just in time to be hit in the chest and knocked backwards by a flying mountain of wet fur and muscle.

"Sora! Get off me!" Roxas yelled. "Blargh! Stop it, that's gross!" He cried as the enthusiastic werewolf licked his face, tail wagging furiously, whining with happiness. Yuffie retreated to a corner of the 'cave' and watched disapprovingly. Axel sat down, clutching his sides and laughing helplessly as his friend struggled ineffectively to escape his brother's greeting.

"You," he growled when he had finally succeeded in shoving the lycanthrope off of his chest, "are a strange, disgusting creature." Yuffie growled softly. "Not because he's a lycan, mutt, because he's a friggin' _puppy_!"

"I think he's cute," Axel fake-cooed. The redhead reached down and scratched Sora's ears. The wolf immediately fell completely still and silent, tongue hanging out, a glazed look of idiot bliss on his face.

"You just like watching him tackle me," Roxas grumbled, wiping his face on his sleeve and wrinkling his nose. "Great, now _I_ smell like wet dog."

"You're such a sourpuss, Rox," Axel teased. "Sora's a good dog. Aren't ya, boy? Aren't ya?" He gently pushed the brown wolf so that he fell on his side and began scratching Sora's belly. Sora whined in pure ecstasy, thumping his tail so hard that it sent up clouds of sand.

"I'd stop that if I were you," Roxas warned.

"Why? He likes it."

"She doesn't," the blond vamp jerked his head at Yuffie, who looked just about ready to leap on Axel and tear out his throat. The redhead immediately snatched his hand back, causing the wolf to whimper sadly at the loss of his belly-scratcher.

"Yikes. Uh, sorry?" he tried. The black wolf snarled and twisted one ear back. "I have no idea what you said, but see? Not touching him anymore. Keep your rabies to yourself, please."

"That's not helping," Roxas noted, seeing the lycan bristle even more at the suggestion that she had rabies. Behind them, the abandoned Sora began to melt and change. The young vampire's attention was brought back to his half-brother at the sound of the brunet throwing up into the sea behind them.

"Ugh, that's still horrible," the boy gagged, splashing clean water into his face.

"Didn't it go away when you started drinking blood?" Axel asked, uncaringly.

"Nah, just the hunger. The nausea's still going strong," he replied, rolling his head and cracking his neck. "That and the pain."

"That's one advantage to being a bloodsucking demon of the night," the redhead commented flippantly. "We're monsters full-time. No messy changing back and forth."

"It's only messy when _I_ do it," Sora laughed. "Yuffie and the others never hurl. They don't even writhe on the ground in pain like me. Aerith says that'll go away after a while, though."

"Good," Roxas sighed in relief. It was… uncomfortable, for lack of a better word, to have to watch his younger sibling in such pain when he was unable to do anything to help. Especially with his best friend and worst enemy also watching. "Here's your blood, by the way." He tossed two packets of the red liquid to Sora. "Type AB this time."

"Cool," the boy ripped a corner off one of the packets with his teeth and began sucking on it like it was a juice box. Yuffie shuddered slightly and looked away. She didn't like the way he smiled with lipstick-red lips after finishing off a packet of blood. She knew it was necessary, but that didn't mean she liked it.

Knew I was dead wrong all along  
You said it for my sake  
that I would not lose my way  
When I was dead wrong all along

"So, how're things in your coven?" Sora asked casually, reaching for the second pack.

"Not that easy, squirt," Axel laughed.

"Aw, c'mon, you know I'm not spying!" Sora pouted.

"I know," Roxas ruffled his brown spikes fondly. "But it's the same principal that keeps you from telling us where you live, even though I just want to know so I can protect you from our coven."

"No it's not," Sora argued. "Leon _told_ me not to tell anyone where our den is. When the alpha orders me to do something I _have_ to do it. It's physically impossible for me to tell you. Watch. I live…" He opened and shut his mouth a few times, his throat working. Finally, gasping for breath, he gave up. "See? Impossible."

Well, to answer your question, things are going fine," Roxas shook his head, not even trying to lecture Sora on how bad that probably was for his throat. He knew the younger boy wouldn't listen to a word he said. "Destiny Island is more than big enough for all of us. And Xemnas doesn't suspect a thing. Speaking of which, how are things with our favorite cousin? Does he think it's strange that you and the mutt over there take such long runs in the morning?"

"Leon's too busy working on the house to notice how long we're gone," Sora frowned. "Roxas, I asked you not to call Yuffie that. If we're going to meet like this, we should at least be civil to each other."

"Don't worry, Sora," Yuffie put in from her corner. "I couldn't care less what those leeches call me."

"You, too, Yuffie," he whined. "You and Axel really don't have to come if you hate each other that much. Roxas and I are fine by ourselves."

"Hey, I didn't say a thing!" Axel protested.

"How do you know they won't just bite you and be done with it?" Yuffie countered, glaring at the pale young men.

"I'm a lycan, Yuf," he said peaceably. "I'd die if I was bitten by a vamp, too. As much as I'm sure stealing blood for me annoys Roxas, I doubt he would kill me."

"She actually thought I would do that?!" Roxas hissed in outrage, taking a half-step towards the sleek, black wolf. "I'll kill _you_ if you even suggest that again!"

"Bring it on!" Yuffie snarled. Axel moved beside Roxas, ready to help if it came to a fight.

"Guys, calm down!" Sora jumped between the would-be combatants. "Yuffie, stop aggravating them! Roxas, leave her alone, she didn't really mean it." He turned to his older half-brother.

"Like hell I didn't," the black wolf grumbled, settling down on the sand sulkily. How had she become the bad guy here?

"Alright," Roxas relaxed, unable to resist his brother's pleading blue eyes. "I'll try to stop, but old prejudices are hard to break."

"I'm not even going to try," Axel chimed in happily, flopping down on his back. "I'll just pretend to so Sora doesn't unleash his dreaded flying-lick-attack on me." He sat up suddenly, propped up on his elbows, a look of inspiration on his tattooed face. "That's it! A _leash_!"

"They don't make leashes for wolves, moron," Roxas laughed, shoving his friend back down.

"They make those metal choke-collars, though," the redhead persisted. "The ones that tighten when you tug on the leash. That one might fit." He eyed Sora's neck speculatively, as if sizing it up. "He's pretty scrawny."

"Try it and I'll take you to the dentist, fang-face," Sora retorted with a grin. "We'll see how well you suck blood with braces." Axel clutched his mouth in mock horror, causing Roxas to crack up. And so the morning passed, goofing off and generally ignoring the sulking wolf in the corner. Eventually, the two lycans took their leave of the cave, waiting until both Roxas and Axel had left before running back to their den.

Mine is not a new story  
Mine is not a new story  
Mine is nothing new  
But it is for me

The rest of Sora's day was spent helping Leon and Cloud build the extension on the house. ('Helping' read: 'being a nuisance and getting in the way of'.) Yuffie retreated to the room she shared with Aerith and yelled at anyone who disturbed her.

"I swear, I don't know who's going gray faster: Cid or _her_," Rikku whined after having been verbally assaulted for slamming her bedroom door too loudly. She sat on a stack of lumber, watching Sora do battle with the power saw. "And she's the same age as _me_."

"Don't worry, Rikku," the boy panted. "It's all part of her…" Vroom, vroom, buzz. "Ah! NO, DON'T…!" The saw clattered to the ground, blades still churning, as Sora's fell over his own feet, which were tangled in the saw's power cord. The saw spun around on the dirt, seeming to lurch for the boy's face.

"It's POSESSED, I tell you! Somebody get it off!" Sora screamed, scooting backwards as fast as he could. The blades gave one last whirring growl before spinning to a halt. Sora looked up to see Rikku holding up the plug. She unraveled the cord from around his feet and helped him up, shaking her head in disbelief.

"How did you manage to get a _square knot_ in the cord?" she asked incredulously.

"I dunno," he shrugged. "Power tools don't like me. Anyway, like I was saying about Yuffie, it's all just part of her quest." He sat on the stack of lumber, picking bits of sawdust out of his hair.

"Her quest?" the blonde was confused. "What quest?"

"Her quest to become the world's youngest old curmudgeon," Sora clarified, giving his hair up as a lost cause and moving on to his clothes.

"Curmudgeon," Rikku repeated, her eyebrows nearly disappearing into her headband.

"Now _there's_ a word you don't hear many fifteen-year-olds using in casual conversation," Leon commented, coming around the corner. He took in the uncut stack of wood, his sawdust-covered cousin, the tracks of raw earth furrowed in the lawn, and the saw's mangled, grass-and-dirt-choked blades with a single glance. He decided not to comment. It was probably a miracle everyone present was still in possession of all ten fingers.

"Hey, Leon," Sora grinned. "I think you need to get that saw exorcised or something. I don't know what, but _something's_ not working right in it."

"Oh, I'm definitely detecting a few loose screws," Rikku agreed. "But they aren't in the saw."

"Anyway," Leon broke in before Sora could work up a suitably outraged reply, "it's getting late. Sora, you should get inside."

"Aw, Leon, you're so paranoid!" the younger brunet complained. "The vamps don't know where our den is, and they haven't attacked in forever!"

"Better safe than sorry," the man deadpanned, his voice brooking no argument. "Go inside." The boy jerked around as if on marionette strings, muttering all the way to the door.

_Stupid alpha orders,_ he silently raged. _Didn't even give me a chance to yell at Rikku._ He stomped up the stairs, heading for Leon's room, where he planned on spending the rest of the afternoon on the computer. _It's not like I'm in any danger anymore. If they had been planning on attacking, Roxas would have told me this morning. Of course, he couldn't possibly know that… but still. He doesn't have to be such a mother hen all the time. He…_

Sora's thoughts ground to an abrupt standstill, as did his feet on the threshold of Leon's bedroom. He simply stopped and gaped, unable to believe what he was seeing.

There, standing in the middle of his cousin's bedroom in the supposedly hidden wolf's den was Axel.

"Jeez, you took your own sweet time, didn't you, pup?" the redhead smirked at the stupid expression on Sora's face. "I thought I'd have to stand here all night."

"Axel… what… how… you…" the boy's thoughts tangoed in his head, disconnected and nonsensical. Finally, the least important of all his questions managed to find its way to his mouth. "How did you get in? The front door was locked."

"I," Axel began haughtily, gesturing grandly with one hand, "am a vampire of over sixty years, accomplished in many forms of magic that escape your limited imagination. Simple things like walls and locks hold no meaning for me."

"Uh-huh. You came in through the back door, didn't you."

"Window, actually," the vampire sniffed, still haughtily. "But that's not what I came here to talk to you about."

"Axel… how did you get here? How did you know where I live? How did you manage to get past Cloud and Leon and all the others? Why are you here?" the questions poured out of Sora like water from a broken dam. For the first time, his eyes took in his almost-friend's appearance. The redhead's face was scratched, his robes disheveled, and one hand remained clamped to his side, as if it pained him. "What _happened_?"

"Xemnas sent Larxene to follow us," he said in a surprisingly steady voice. "She decided to follow you instead of killing you, and she found your den. She came back and told Xemnas, and he was organizing an attack when I slipped out to warn you since Roxas is currently being held prisoner in our own home."

"But how did you get all beat up?"

"Well, that happened on the way here," Axel grimaced, finally showing pain in his face. "I just so happened to pass a few of your delightful friends on the way here, and they recognized me as a vamp and _shot me_. Hoodlums."

"They shot you?" Sora repeated. "Are you okay? Where did it hit? Wait a minute…" Sudden realization dawned on him. "Why did they have a gun?"

"_A _gun? _A_ gun? Kid, they had, like, _five_ guns," Axel told him. "Of varying sizes. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be heading for our coven…"

"And you didn't tell me this before?!" Sora shrieked. "Why are we standing here? Let's _go_!" He whirled around, ready to charge down the stairs and out the door. Axel's hand on his shirt collar had the dual effect of stopping him and nearly choking him.

"Heel, boy," the redhead commanded. "If you rush out there now, your entire pack will find out about your little blood binge. You wouldn't want that, hmm?"

"Are you saying we should attack your entire coven just the two of us?" Sora cried, twisting around to stare at the older man.

"Not the two of us," Axel corrected him. "Roxas, too, and all your little gun-toting gangster friends. We'll take em all out, and your pack need never know."

"Alright," Sora gave up. "Out the window it is."

"Finally, we agree," Axel winked. In one movement, he sprang to the window and threw it open, dragging Sora along by the back of his shirt.

It was at this moment, unfortunately, that Leon decided to walk into his bedroom.

"Sora?!" he shouted, his gaze flicking rapidly between his cousin and the vampire that was halfway out the window.

"Crap," Axel sighed. This complicated things.

So I was dead wrong all along  
You said it for my sake  
I don't, would not, lose my way...  
When I was dead wrong all along  
You said it for my sake  
That I would not lose my way  
Did I really lose my way?  
Or are you afraid?

_(A/N: What's this? Not a Rise Against song? Le gasp! Anyway, yeah, 'Dead Wrong' belongs to The Fray this time and Kingdom Hearts still belongs to Square Enix and Disney. But one day, when I take over the world, that will all change.)_


	11. Blow Me Away

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

9

They fall in line

One at a time

Ready to play

I can't see them anyway

No time to lose

We've got to move

Steady your hand

I am losing sight again

Let him go!" Leon sprang at Axel, not even bothering to shift into a wolf.

"Wait, you don't understa—!" the redhead's protest was lost in a pained howl as Leon nearly wrenched his arm off, jerking Sora away from him. Even that noise was cut off by the lycan's fist slamming into his stomach, driving the air out of him.

"Leon, what's…?" running footsteps sounded out as Cloud burst into the room, drawn by the shouts.

"Cloud, get Sora out of here!" Leon barked. His fist shot towards Axel's face this time, but the vampire dove to the ground and rolled out of the way.

Sora saw no more of the fight as the beta's arm snaked around his waist and yanked him out of the bedroom. They were halfway down the hall before Sora could gather his wits enough to protest.

"Shut up," Cloud growled in response. "The sooner you're out of here, the sooner I can go back and help Leon kill that thing!"

"You don't understand!" Sora yelled, thrashing in the older werewolf's grip. "It's not like that at all! Axel came to warn me; the vampires are going to attack!" This brought Cloud up short.

"What do you mean?"

"One of them followed me and Yuffie this morning and now they know where we are," the boy gabbled out as fast as he could. "Axel came to warn me and now you're beating him up! Let! Me! Go!" He finally succeeded in squirming out of the beta's grip. As soon as Sora's feet touched the floor he was off, racing back to the scene of the fight. He exploded into the room just in time to see Axel sweep Leon's feet out from under him, sending the man crashing into the room's single chair.

"Axel, let's go!" Sora cried, springing past him and onto the windowsill.

"Sora…" Leon struggled to disentangle himself from the wreckage of what had once been a chair, gaping at his cousin in disbelief. Then, to Axel in angry realization, "You hypnotized him again!"

"Hypnotism's got nothing on this kid. He's INSANE," Axel gasped, flinging himself out the window after the young lycan before Leon could get up and punch him again.

Sora hit the ground running, ignoring the jarring pain that shot up his legs and the confused shouts of his fellow werewolves as they saw him speeding off with a vampire. He barely slowed as his body began to shift and change. In fact, he kept running even as his legs burned and his whole being cried out in agony.

He was finally stopped as his knees reversed, sending him toppling onto his face. Axel scooped the half-boy up as he ran past, carrying him onward until he was a full wolf. Sora jumped out of Axel's grip and dropped a little behind. The redhead twisted to see what he was doing. His green eyes widened.

"Oh _hell_ no…!" he yelped as a small mountain of canine smashed into the back of his legs. A moment later, he found himself laying facedown on the back of a huge brown wolf, running through suburbia.

"This is going to be a media nightmare," the vampire predicted grimly. He clung to the lycanthrope's fur tightly, finding it amazing that this creature with the blazing eyes and dagger fangs was the same one who had tackled Roxas and licked him, tail wagging cheerfully. Even more amazing was that both animals were the same as the skinny, scarred boy who until recently had been living in a boatyard. How far they had come.

Fire your guns

It's time to run

Blow me away

I will stay unless I may

After the fall

We'll shake it off

Show me the way

Axel was shaken out of his nostalgia by the sounds of screaming and gunfire. They had arrived at the coven. The front door hung open and shattered glass coated the front lawn. Sora leaped easily over it, even with the weight of his passenger, thumping onto the stoop. Axel took this opportunity to dismount, leading the way into the noisy house.

No one was in the foyer. Sora sniffed the air, gagging a little as the stench of vampires flooded his sinuses. Hidden in and amongst the horrible smell of the undead were a few familiar scents.

_Tidus, of course,_ he identified the threads of smell. _Wakka, Hayner, Riku… why am I not surprised none of the girls are here? Wait… Selphie! How'd they drag_ her _into this?_

"No time, mutt, let's get going!" Axel dashed up the stairs to where the sounds of battle were loudest. With a resounding sneeze that nearly blew his brains out the back of his skull, Sora leaped after him. His claws made a horrible scratching racket on the wood. If anyone hadn't known they were coming, they knew now.

The vampire and lycan burst into the first room they came to, finding it occupied by several vamps and one lone human. One of the vampire lay bleeding on the floor, clawing desperately for the sandy-haired gunman who now faced off against two more of the monsters.

"Tidus, you _retard_!" Sora yapped angrily. "What are you _doing_ here?!" Of course, nobody understood a word he said, but the noise drew the attention of everyone in the room, including the vampires.

"Well, well, if it isn't Roxas's lapdog," one of the vampires sneered, frozen in the act of leaping towards Tidus. "Come to save your master, hmm?"

"Sora, is that you?" Tidus's voice was unsteady. The wolf jerked his head up and down in an animal imitation of a nod that barely reassured his frightened friend. It didn't help that Sora's next move was to howl angrily at the vampires and bound forward, lips drawn back in a fearsome grimace. The sneering vampire was sent flying into his fellow vamp with four parallel lines of blood drawn across his chest.

While Sora was occupied, Axel snatched the human boy up, kicking out the room's window with his foot and leaping through it onto the ground. He shoved the kid away roughly with a shout of "Run fast, if you know what's good for you!" and leaped back onto the sill. This whole maneuver had taken less than five seconds, but in that time Sora had managed to maim or otherwise incapacitate all three vampires.

The pair raced out of the room side by side, heading for the sounds of gunfire. They burst onto the third floor of the house, into what appeared to be a kind of old-fashioned shoot-out.

"Down!" Axel tackled the werewolf back down the stairs, just as at least four bullets tore into the wall where his head had been. They crept up more cautiously this time, keeping their heads low.

At one end of the hallway, vampires had built a barricade of bookshelves in the doorway of what had once been a library. At the other end, the humans took shelter in the master bedroom behind the bed. Every now and then, a head would pop up above shelves of mattress and take a shot at the other end of the hall before vanishing to the sound of return fire. Rarely did either sides' bullets find their mark.

Only the strongest will survive

Lead me to heaven when we die

I am a shadow on the wall

I'll be the one to save us all

"On my signal, we make a break for the bedroom, got it?" Axel hissed to his canine companion. Sora's face scrunched up into something like amusement. "Don't look at me like that, you know what I meant! Ready? Okay… GO!" At his shout, both of them shot out of the stairwell, keeping low and zigzagging to make harder targets. Many shots rang out, but only one hit, and even then it only grazed Sora's flank. The two dove behind the bed, crashing into several bodies and causing most fire to come to an abrupt cease.

"Sora…?" Riku yelped almost as loudly as the wolf was. "What are you…?"

"What are YOU?!" Sora snarled back, well aware that no one understood him but feeling the need to answer anyway. "What in the world made you think that invading a nest of the living dead was a remotely sane idea, much less a good one?!"

"…I have _no_ idea what you just said…" the boy told him.

"Ah! Vamp! Shoot it!" Selphie shrieked, pointing one of her two pistols at Axel.

"No, wait, hold it, stop!" Axel threw his hands up in surrender, his voice panicked. "You already shot me! I'm on your side here."

"You haven't got a gun," Hayner observed.

"You haven't got a brain," Axel retorted. "Taking potshots at walking corpses doesn't do jack. Luckily for us, Sora's happy band of rabid relatives will probably be arriving shortly, bent on my destruction."

"That doesn't help us now," Wakka said, preparing to jump up and unleash a barrage of semi-automatic rifle on the next sign of life at the other end of the hall. There was a sudden motion, and Wakka sprang to his feet like a macabre jack-in-the-box. In the same instant, Axel kicked his feet out from under him, sending the boy crashing down without having fired a shot. The other teenagers turned to him with outraged looks.

"Do NOT shoot the blond ones," was all the redhead said, his calm voice seething with unexpressed anger.

"Why not?" Hayner demanded.

"The girl is a human," Axel told them, wisely omitting the fact that she was a willing accomplice, "and the boy is Sora's half-brother."

"Your half-brother is a vampire," Riku stated, fighting a bizarre desire to laugh. "Who were your parents, Gomez and Morticia Addams?"

"Buh-nuh-nuh-nuh," Axel hummed, snapping his fingers twice. "I'm surprised you know that show."

"You do?"

"I am over sixty years old. Yes, I know the Addams Family," Axel looked at Selphie like she was crazy.

"That's great. I am so happy for you. Really, I am," Hayner flinched as several rounds ripped into the mattress they cowered behind, showering them with foam and feathers. "Can we discuss classical television some other time? Like when we're _not_ being shot at by vampires?"

"Who invaded whose house with enough firepower to arm a small country? You guys started it, they're just finishing it," Axel told him. "Where did you get those things anyway?" Selphie opened her mouth to tell him that her father ran a hunting store that was now several pieces of merchandise shorter, but was cut off by a commotion from the vampires' end of the hall.

Looking up, Sora was appalled to see Naminé and Roxas framed in the doorway, held by several hands whose owners hid on either side of the doorframe.

"Don't shoot!" both he and Axel shout/yipped, throwing themselves onto Hayner and Wakka.

"That's your brother?" Riku asked.

"And his stalker, yes," Axel replied. At his side, Sora jerked his head up and down furiously as if agreeing, or possibly attempting to get rid of an annoying fly. "Please don't shoot them."

"So what do we do? We're at a standoff here," Hayner pointed out, shoving the tattooed vampire off him. His answer came in the form of a painful groan escaping Sora's muzzle. The wolf fell to his side, squirming and moaning. The moaning soon turned to retching, as the wolf's body lengthened in places and shortened in others and generally shrank into a bony boy with sapphire eyes.

There's nothing left

So save your breath

Lying in wait

Caught inside this tidal wave

Your cover's blown

Nowhere to go

Holding your faith

Loaded I will walk away

"Sora, are you okay?" Selphie helped him sit up, her hands shaking, her pistols forgotten.

"I'm fine," Sora gasped, forcing his stomach into stillness by sheer force of will. "I think we can all agree: we aren't going to win this."

"But what can we do?" Wakka shook his head hopelessly. "We can't shoot, we can't run, we can't do anything, ya?"

"We negotiate," Sora replied. Grateful that he had decided to wear a white shirt today, the boy quickly ripped a ragged swathe off the bottom to create a makeshift white flag, which he tied around the barrel of Wakka's rifle.

"You don't negotiate with vampires," Axel warned. "What have you got to give them, huh? They've got all they want right here: enough fresh blood to last for days, entertainment in the form of a lycan pup, and me, the traitor."

"I can bluff until Leon get here," Sora told him, knowing it was a weak plan, but seeing no alternative.

"Sora, you're bleeding!" Selphie suddenly gasped, pointing.

"What? Yeah, a shot grazed me before," the boy barely glanced at the bloody wound in his side. "Don't worry, it's just a scratch."

"It's huge," Selphie argued. "Doesn't it hurt?"

"Lycans heal fast and trust me, I've hurt worse," Sora snapped, pointing to his scarred back. "Forget it. We've got bigger problems, remember?" Slowly, he held up the gun with the strip of white cloth on it and waved it back and forth.

"Truce!" he yelled out at the vampires. "We want to negotiate."

"Negotiate?" Roxas yelled back. "You're an idiot, Sora! They're not going to negotiate!"

"Told you," Axel muttered. Sora glared at him before returning his attention to the blockade behind which the vampire coven hid.

"I want to hear it from _them_, not you," Sora shouted back.

"Then listen well, mutt," another voice replied. "We don't negotiate with animals, and certainly not with squalling puppies."

"We were brought up not to play with our food," an unseen vampire added. The hall was soon ringing with derisive shouts. A bullet tore a hole through Sora's haphazard flag of truce.

"What's Plan B?" Axel demanded as more and more shots were fired, eating holes into the floor, the walls, and the bed around them.

"That _was_ Plan B," Sora snapped, retracting the rifle hastily before his hand got shot off. "Plan A was something along the lines of not attacking the coven of bloodthirsty corpses, but you can see how well _that_ plan turned out."

"We were sick of you being in danger all the time while we sat on the sidelines shaking out pompoms," Riku told him calmly.

"…so instead you hocked the pompoms and used the money to purchase illegal firearms," Axel finished for him. Selphie hurriedly told him about her father's business while the vampire's eyes widened slowly.

"Your dad's hunting shop stocks machine guns?" he exclaimed, eyeing their weaponry with disbelief. "What do his clients hunt with them? Elephants?"

"Ah! Can we stop talking and figure out a way to get out of here?" Hayner cried, as a stray bullet slammed into the floor near his leg, spraying splinters over him.

"Leon will come," Sora said confidently. "Until then, all we have to do is…" His reassuring statement was choked off in a strangled gasp. Down the hall, Roxas had grabbed hold of Naminé and made a break for the stairwell. Gunshots coughed out so rapidly that even Sora's heightened hearing couldn't distinguish between individual shots. Roxas tumbled into the stairwell on top of Naminé, shielding her. The scent of blood, thick and new, slapped Sora in the face like an unexpected wave in the ocean.

Before Axel or any of his friends had a chance to stop him, Sora had taken off down the hallway, pursuing his brother. The roaring in his ears might have been gunfire, but might have been the blood pounding through them. The stings he felt on his legs, arms, and torso may have been bullets, or simply the debris from near misses. The stench of blood in his nostrils was a mix of his brother's and his own.

Fire your guns

It's time to run

Blow me away

I will stay unless I may

After the fall

We'll shake it off

Show me the way

The lycan took only a few seconds to reach the relative safety of the stairs, but in those few seconds he imagined Roxas lying dead in a hundred different ways. Naminé screamed in shock as he tripped down the stairs and rolled to a stop at the bottom, right next to her. Her white dress was splashed with crimson, and her normally cheerful face was drained with shock and horror.

"Roxas," Sora croaked through a throat that was suddenly as dry as the Sahara. "Is he alright?"

"I'm fine," Roxas replied from Naminé's other side. The blonde boy crawled around her to look at his younger half-brother, horror creeping over his features. "Sora, you're covered in blood! They didn't…"

"I'm alright, Rox," Sora assured him, moving to sit up. Strangely, though his arms moved to support him just fine, he couldn't seem to maneuver his legs under him. His left one lay limp, jerked wildly for a moment, and then lay still once more, unresponsive to his will.

"You're hurt," Naminé whispered. "Don't try to move, you're bleeding all over the place." Sora glared at his limb in perplexity.

And then the pain hit.

It was just as bad as transforming into a wolf, only the agony was confined to his leg. Sora whimpered, unable to howl as he gasped for air, his unshot leg twitching spasmodically. Roxas hesitated only an instant before tearing strips off the hem of his black coat and tying them around his sibling's thigh as a tourniquet.

"Go, Naminé," he grunted between clenched fangs. He gave her an address in a low voice. "Go there and tell them Sora's been shot. Quickly!"

"Al-alright," the girl nodded tremulously, climbing to her feet and turning away. She was forestalled by a guttural snarl from further down the stairs.

"That won't be necessary," Leon growled, padding forward menacingly. "We're already here."

Only the strongest will survive

Lead me to heaven when we die

I am a shadow on the wall

I'll be the one to save us all

You wanted it back

Don't fight me, God

"Leon…" Sora gasped, recognizing his alpha's voice. "Leon, Riku and the others are upstairs… they're fighting… please, save them!" This short plea seemed to exhaust his reserves of coherency, and the boy fell back against his brother in a state of semi-consciousness. Leon's eyes flickered uncertainly for a moment at the thought of leaving his cousin with what was to his eyes a bloodsucking monster. Roxas glared back at him, daring the wolf to attack. After a moment, he gave a curt nod and raced up the stairs, his pack in howling pursuit.

"We'd better get out of here before all hell breaks loose," Roxas said, rising with Sora draped across his back.

"This isn't all hell?" Naminé giggled crazily, gesturing to the sounds of angry vampires doing battle with a pack of werewolves and gun-toting teenagers in the hallway.

"Only the fourth or fifth circle," he grinned at her briefly before navigating the stairs. The blonde girl giggled again, almost hysterically, hiccupped, and followed him.

Only the strongest will survive

Lead me to heaven when we die

I am a shadow on the wall

I'll be the one to save us all

Save us all

Save us all

Save us all

_(A/N: I'm sorry, I know I promised this one two days ago! Well, it's actually 12:50 PM, so it's only ONE day late… it counts right? Right? It doesn't, does it? I guess not. Anyway 'Blow Me Away' belongs to Breaking Benjamin. Oh, and somethings going freaky with the line breaks on my computer, so ignore them if they show up.)_


	12. Let The Bodies Hit The Floor

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

9

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the

Floor

"And he thinks _we're_ crazy!" Selphie cried, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. "We've gotta go after him!"

"And do what?" Hayner growled, reloading his gun. "We all saw him get shot chasing that vamp. There was blood _all over_." His friends and Axel stared at him for a moment of incomprehension before the meaning of his words sank in.

"Roxas would _never_ bite him," Axel insisted. "Even if Sora were bleeding from every orifice and topped with whipped cream and a cherry, he would not bite him."

"Blood and whipped cream?" Selphie wrinkled her nose.

"It's an acquired taste."

"Again, we can discuss this later," Hayner snapped. "So what do we do now?"

"Like Sora said before, we have to hold out until the wolves come," Riku put in, cracking off a few shots before retreating back behind the bed. "It's a good thing we blew all our allowance at those virtual shoot-out games every weekend for the past three years."

"You and Tidus did," Wakka corrected. "But some of us have lives, ya?"

"And some of us are going to get shot by vampires because their aim isn't as good as mine," Riku shot back smugly. "Who's the stupid one now?"

"It's still you," Axel assured him.

"Speaking of Tidus, where is he?" Selphie asked. "We got separated on the stairs…"

"Sora and I saved his butt and threw him outside," the redheaded vampire told her. "If he's smart, he's halfway to Canada by now."

"He's not smart," Wakka shook his head mournfully. "This was his and Riku's plan in the first place. I came to make sure they didn't die, Hayner came cause he hasn't beaten anyone up in weeks, and Selphie is the one with the guns."

"In that case, we'll just have to hope that he settled for calling the cops or something," Axel replied. "Until the wolves get here, we're pretty much sitting ducks." Even as he said those words, the pyromaniac vampire reflected that this was probably the first time he had ever wanted the werewolves to show up. Or, at least, the first time he'd be rooting for them to win if they did.

"Do you feel that?" Selphie suddenly asked, her voice high and squeaky. Curt nods were all the answer she received. Beneath their feet, the floor had begun to tremble as if a train were passing the house. The tremble grew into a hammering, pounding noise. Axel's green eyes widened as he realized what it was he was hearing.

A huge, shaggy shape exploded from the stairwell, swinging around and charging at the barricade of bookshelves. Behind it, many more burst into the hallway, their paws thudding on the hardwood floors like thunder, their muzzles raised in baying anger. Most of the wolves followed their leader in attacking the vampires, but one peeled off from the main group to bound onto the bed and survey the humans crouching there.

The light brown wolf's eyes lit upon Axel, who gave it a feeble grin. Her lips rose in a snarl, imitating the gesture.

"Please, he's with us," Selphie scooted between the lycan and the vampire. "He's nice. He helped Sora and he saved Tidus." The wolf looked unconvinced, but settled for giving the redhead a hard look in warning instead of biting his throat out. The wolf seemed to shudder for a moment, and shortly was replaced by a brown-haired woman wearing a pink dress.

Beaten, why for

Can't take much more

Here we go

Here we go

Here we go now

One, nothing wrong with me

Two, nothing wrong with me

Three, nothing wrong with me

Four, nothing wrong with me

"Are any of you hurt?" she asked gently, slipping down to their side of the bed.

"Nope, just Axel, and that's because we shot him," Hayner reported.

"You're the one who came to our den and hypnotized Sora, aren't you?" the woman, Aerith, glared.

"I came to your den, yeah, but I didn't hypnotize him," Axel corrected. "My coven discovered the location of your den and they were planning an attack on it. I came to warn you, getting shot at on the way by these delinquents. Leon saw me and freaked out so Sora and I made our escape before he could kill me."

"Why would you warn us?"

"Why would you care at this point?" Axel shot back. "It's clearly not a trap or something; otherwise I wouldn't be hiding behind a king-sized bed with a bunch of snacks!"

"Snacks?" Selphie repeated with wide eyes.

"Vampire," he reminded her with a flash of dazzlingly white fangs.

"As long as no one here's hurt, come with me," Aerith instructed. "I'll get you out of here."

"Is Sora okay?" Riku asked.

"…he was shot in the leg," Aerith admitted after a pause. "The blond vampire and human girl are helping him now."

"Whipped cream and cherry," Axel said with satisfaction, drawing a strange look from the pretty lycan.

One, something's got to give

Two, something's got to give

Three, something's got to give

Now

--

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the

"Ah!" Roxas yelped, slipping. He was saved from a headfirst tumble down the stairs with Sora on his back by Naminé grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back upright. His feet slithered for a moment on the blood-slick floor before finding purchase again.

"Thanks, Nami," he sighed.

"What's going on?" Sora's groggy voice was muffled by Roxas's back, which his face was currently pressed into.

"We almost fell, don't worry about it," the blond vampire dismissed it, continuing his perilous trek to the first floor.

"Why are you carrying me?" now his voice was getting stronger, more like the usual Sora.

"You got shot in the leg, remember?" Naminé reminded him.

"Yeah, so?"

"So getting shot in the leg kind of rules out walking," Roxas snapped.

"I'm a lycan, idiot," Sora began to struggle in his brother's grip. "Let me go."

"Sora…!" Roxas began to protest. It was too late. The brunet wiggled from his grasp and fled a few steps back up to escape Roxas's attempts to recapture him.

"You're… walking…" Naminé realized. "How?"

"I'm a lycan," Sora repeated, showing her his leg. "I heal fast."

"Not even lycans heal a bullet wound with the bullet still inside," Roxas objected. "That can't be healthy."

"It's not still inside," Sora leaned down and picked something off the floor. He held it up for them to see. It was a bullet, slick with blood that was clearly Sora's. (Or, at least, it was clear to both Sora and Roxas, while Naminé merely had to assume.)

"Sora… it's still not natural…" Roxas's arguments were getting weaker.

"I know it's not," he returned, dropping the bullet with disgust. "I think it's because I bit those other vampires and got their blood in my mouth. _No_, I didn't drink it, but I had to bite them to fight them."

"What did the vampires look like?" Roxas demanded urgently. "Sora, was one of them a blonde woman? Did you bite her?"

"No, they were all men."

"Good," Roxas sighed in relief.

"Sexist, sexist, sexist," a voice tut-tutted from the top of the stairs. Three heads snapped up to see a young woman in a black coat sneering down at them. "How ungentlemanly."

Push me again

This is the end

Here we go

Here we go

Here we go now

One, nothing wrong with me

Two, nothing wrong with me

Three, nothing wrong with me

Four, nothing wrong with me

"Burn in hell, Larxene," Roxas snarled, shoving Naminé behind him.

"After you," she smirked back, pulling out several small knives, which she held between her knuckles. In a movement almost too fast to see, three of the knives were sent speeding towards the trio, buzzing like angry hornets. Roxas easily batted the ones meant for him and Naminé out of the air, while Sora settled for clumsily dodging, his movements hampered by his still-stiff leg.

Larxene took the opportunity to leap down the stairs in a way that would have broken a human's neck, but didn't even slow her down. Roxas snarled again and sprang at her. Sora attacked from her other side, hands curled into fists, wishing he had time to turn into a wolf.

Larxene spun around, lashing out with her knives. They slashed shallow lines across Roxas's cheek, much like cat scratches. Sora took her fist backhand to his face, stumbling back and somehow avoiding her knives. He immediately dove forward again and tackled her around her legs, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Roxas took it upon himself to yell at Naminé to run and jump on Larxene's back, sinking his fangs into her neck. Before he'd had time to even bite her properly, the blonde woman was up and furious. Still he clung onto her like a terrier, clawing at her eyes.

A fist with the force of a freight train crashed into his stomach. Roxas freed his teeth from Larxene's flesh to gasp and choke, tasting blood at the back of his throat. Sora howled in rage and threw a punch at her.

The woman caught it easily and gripped. Sora yelped in pain, feeling the bones of his hand grinding against each other. A moment later, he was flipped over the vampire's shoulder, landing on top of his brother, who was on his hands and knees gasping for air. Both boys went down hard, seeing stars.

"Not looking forward to tasting wolf blood, but hey, beggars and choosers," Larxene commented, licking her lips. "The fight wasn't much, but it worked up my appetite." She leaned down and leisurely plucked Sora up by his throat, keeping one foot planted on Roxas's chest so he couldn't get up. "This time I'll finish the job."

"Bite… me… bitch," Sora managed around the hand that was crushing his windpipe.

"Oh, I plan to…"

One, something's got to give

Two, something's got to give

Three, something's got to give

Now

--

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Leon bounded over the bookshelves blocking the doorway without breaking stride, plunging into the midst of many, many vampires. His pack followed him unhesitatingly, and was soon locked in bloody combat as the vamps abandoned their guns in favor of fangs. Between the writhing bodies, Leon caught sight of two vampires in the corner of the room, watching the brawl.

_Those are probably the leaders,_ Leon reasoned, fastening his teeth into a vampire with an excess of facial piercings. _If I take them out, the rest of the coven might back off, if only for a little while._ He summarily ripped a gaping hole in the vampire's neck, leaving it laying there for later dismemberment and combustion.

The scarred wolf heaved himself through the melee, fending off attacking undead and all the while making his way towards the motionless two in the corner. Finally, he emerged from the thick of the fighting, directly in front of his targets.

Without pausing for witty movie-hero banter (pointless without a human voicebox, anyway) Leon launched himself at the taller one's chest. His paws hit air, the cloaked vampire suddenly gone. He pivoted on a single paw, snapping at the other vampire's leg on the way.

The taller one, Xemnas, brought his hand down almost casually onto the wolf's back. In an instant, Leon was sailing through the air, trailing blood like a comet's tail. He landed heavily, scrambling to his paws just in time as the shorter one, Saïx, aimed a spinning kick at his ribcage. The lycan slithered under it and shot up from under him like an attacking shark, tearing into the blue-haired vampire's stomach.

Skin against skin

Blood and bone

You're all by yourself

But you're not alone

You wanted in and

Now you're here

Driven by hate

Consumed by fear

He was swatted away by Saïx's hand connecting to his temple. Leon staggered back, spitting out a mouthful of bloody cloth as his victim clutched his wounded belly. Xemnas chose that moment to drop from the ceiling, swinging something similar in looks to a lightsaber from Star Wars.

Leon rolled to the side just in time as the glowing red blade of the sword sliced a gouge into the library floor. He dodged again as a the gigantic, spiked head of Saïx's weapon slammed into the hardwood by his head, sending a fountain of splinters to the ceiling and creating a huge crater of mangled wood.

The two vampires closed in on the lycan, their weapons creating a kind of cage that forced Leon into constant retreat. Their smiles grew into goblin grins that showed off their razor fangs. They attacked as one.

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

--

One, nothing wrong with me

Two, nothing wrong with me

Three, nothing wrong with me

Four, nothing wrong with me

Yuna, Rikku, and Paine tore through the vampires like a Catherine's Wheel, all spinning fur and snapping jaws with their tails touching each other's noses. Cloud guarded Aerith's escape with the humans and Axel, ruthlessly ending any vampire bold enough to try and slip past him into the hallway. Yuffie took out her frustrations of the past few days in the form of violently bloody savagery. Cid acted as undertaker, following behind the other wolves and finishing the job of dismembering their kills for later burning, grumbling complaints that only his packmates could understand.

But as determined and merciless as the lycanthropes were, they were only a few versus far too many vampires that were nigh on immortal. Wave upon wave of vampires threw themselves at the wolves.

One, something's got to give

Two, something's got to give

Three, something's got to give

Now

One lucky vamp rebounded from an attack by Yuffie that nearly tore his arm off and fell upon Cid, who was busy fending off three others. The blond wolf barely had time to notice that he was under attack before he was knocked off his paws, blood spilling from a gash that went from his shoulder to his hip.

YuRiPa noticed his plight and bounded over with one mind, continuing their circling maneuver with the fallen wolf in the center. The whirlwind of teeth and claws deterred the vampires for a moment, but no longer. Rikku fought with one spiral-pupiled eye squeezed shut and her tail hung at a strange angle. Yuna favored her left hind paw and blood trickled from a nick in her ear. Paine sported a cut down her rump and a knock to the head that made gave her double vision.

Yuffie and Cloud weren't doing much better. They had been forced up onto the bookshelves blocking the doorway, snapping at and vampire that jumped too high or tried to climb up.

"Leon…" Cloud paused to shake his head, snapping the neck of a vampire he held in his jaws. He dropped the corpse and continued. "…Needs to hurry his ass up. We aren't going to hold out much…!" He was cut off again as he lunged forward to slash his claws across the chest of a vampire trying to escape over the shelves, sending it flying back into the mosh pit of fighting bodies that filled the library. Yuffie yapped a quick agreement, preoccupied with two vampires coordinating their attacks in a manner reminiscent of velociraptors.

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

_(A/N: I don't like using this song for this chapter because of the lack of original lyrics… But the song itself, the music I mean, fits well. I'm nearing the end of this fic, actually. This is meant to be the super-ultra-final-battle type thing. So it might not end next chapter, either, or it might end at the end of the chapter. We'll see. What's funny is that while writing this hardcore battle scene, I was listening to 'Summer Sunshine' by The Corrs, which is a happy-happy song, kinda. Oh, and 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor' belongs to Drowning Pool. R&R please!)_


	13. Bleed It Out

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

10

Yeah, here we go for the hundredth time

Hand grenade pins in every line

Throw em up and let something shine

Going out of my fcking mind

Filthy mouth, no excuse

Find a new place to hang this noose

String me up from atop these roofs

Knot it tight so I won't get loose

It was just plain bad timing that did it.

Sora struggled and howled in pain as Larxene's fangs and nails dug into his neck. Roxas gathered the last reserves of his strength, galvanized by the sound of his younger brother's pain. He wiggled out from under the woman's foot, throwing her off-balance, and jumped at her, meaning to yank her hair away from Sora. Time grew thick and viscous, like molasses, seeming to suspend Roxas in midair and distort sounds.

It was due to this inconsistency that Larxene jerked back, blood spraying outward in an arc as round, red holes appeared in her back and chest before either boy had even heard the burst of gunfire. Larxene sagged to the floor, held up by the thickness of the air. Roxas just had enough time to twist around before he too fell as another burst of gunshots split the syrupy air.

Sora also fell, no longer held up by Larxene's hand around his neck, his face ashen and his neck smeared with blood. He collapsed on top of the blonde vampire. Roxas fell on him.

It was then that time resumed its normal hectic pace. Hands frantically pulled a limp Roxas off of Sora, then pulling the brunet upright as an equally frantic voice called his name.

"Tidus…" Sora groaned. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass," Tidus retorted. "Are you okay? Can you walk?"

"Yes and yes," Sora leaned heavily on the younger boy's shoulder as he stood before releasing him. The boy promptly fell to his knees as he caught sight of his brother's crumpled body.

"Roxas?! What did you do to him?" Sora screamed, his hands fluttering over Roxas's body in confusion. He wouldn't find a pulse or heartbeat anyway, but how would he tell if the blond was _dead_ dead instead of _un_dead?

"I shot him," was the unrepentant reply. "He was going to attack you, I saw him leaping!"

"He was trying to save me, you idiot," Sora cried. "He's my brother!" Tidus's tan face went pale at this. He had really screwed up this time. _Really_ screwed up.

"I'm… okay…" Roxas coughed up a little blood. He sat up slowly and wiped his mouth. "I'm okay," he repeated more strongly. "I'm dead already. You can't kill me unless you rip me up and burn me."

"Luckily for me," a hissing voice added. Fangs sank into Tidus's neck from behind and the boy cried out. Larxene was back. Roxas jumped to his feet and ripped the two of them apart forcefully. Larxene fell back, winded, leaving the blitzball player free to whirl around and deliver a haymaker to her face. Normally this wouldn't have done much, but the vampire was weakened from being peppered with lead, so she staggered back, clutching her face and howling.

A louder howl overrode hers as Sora twisted and writhed on the ground. He changed more rapidly than he had ever done before, leaping to all four paws in less than ten seconds. The wolf sprang onto Larxene's chest, his eyes alight with manic bloodlust.

Roxas turned Tidus away. "You don't want to watch this. Trust me." Both boys winced a little with every new crunching noise from behind them. After a minute, the disturbing noises ceased, to be replaced by a scratchy scraping sound. Eventually, even that stopped and Sora the wolf padded around to his brother's side, whining concernedly.

"I'm fine, Sora," he assured him. "See? Healing already. Not as fast as a lycan, but not nearly as slow as a human. Thank you for saving him, by the way," he added.

"You didn't seriously think I was going to leave, did you?" Tidus grinned. "I wasn't about to let you and Riku claim all the glory."

"What about me? I was the one who bravely risked all to warn my archenemies of their imminent demise, after all," a new voice chimed in. "Don't I get any glory?"

"All you get is suffering and martyrdom," Roxas grinned, twisting around to look at Axel.

"Damn," the redheaded vamp sighed.

"Tidus! Axel said you'd left!" Tidus, Sora, and Roxas were soon surrounded by their friends, all clamoring to know what had happened and what that pile of bloody cloth in the corner was.

"It's a dead vampire," Aerith broke in, her nose crinkled in disgust. "We don't have time to talk. Let's get out of here."

"C'mon, guys, Leon can handle the rest," Riku agreed, herding them after the brunette.

"I'm staying to help," Roxas announced. Sora yipped something that was clearly an agreement.

"I guess I have to stay, then," Axel sighed with fake reluctance. "To make sure you don't get shot. Again."

"Damn straight."

Truth is you can stop and stare

Bled myself out and no one cares

Dug a trench out, laid down there

With a shovel up out of reach, somewhere

Yeah, someone pour it in

Make it a dirt dance floor again

Say your prayers and stomp it out

When they bring that chorus in

--

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out

Leon sprang backwards as the spiked head of Saïx's weapon swished past his nose, pirouetting on one paw to avoid a thrust of Xemnas's sword from the other side. Both vampires jeered at him, swinging their weapons almost lazily. They knew they had him trapped.

They knew he was done for.

And, sadly, Leon was starting to think so, too. His pack was slowly being overwhelmed, and exhausted YuRiPa defending the fallen form of Cid while Cloud single-handedly guarded the exit and Yuffie, who was unconscious. The alpha himself was involved in a cat-and-mouse game with the lead vampires, and he was definitely not the cat.

He could only hope that Sora, Aerith, and the humans were long gone. If even the two of them survived, they would be able to join a new wolf pack, far away from Destiny Island. The Island was a lost cause. It had long since fallen to the vampires, though Leon had refused to see it until now, as his pack was slaughtered before his very eyes.

"I'm… done for… guys…" Rikku panted heavily. "I can't… keep fighting…"

"Let me up, then, damn it!" Cid growled from behind her. "I can still fight!"

"Your stomach is slashed open," Paine retorted, shaking her head in an attempt to get rid of her double vision. "No, you can't fight."

"We have to keep fighting," Yuna added. "Leon… Leon told us… to fight…"

"…yeah, I know," Rikku finally sighed, snapping at a vampire for daring to touch her injured tail with a howl of indignation. Almost at the same time, a muscle-bound vamp landed a lucky blow on Yuna's shoulder, sending the brunette crashing into Cid, both wolves howling in pain.

"Leave her alone!" Rikku's snarl blended with a new one. The muscle-bound vampire's face acquired a look of shock. Slowly, he fell to his knees and then to his face, blood pumping from his suddenly-vanished throat.

"Heya, guys!" Sora yipped, his muzzle dripping with red. "Thought you could use some… hey! I'm talking here, asshole!" He broke off to tear at the not-yet-dead vamp's body, who had grabbed his leg, before returning to finish his sentence. "…help."

"Help Leon," Paine told him. "He's fighting to buy you time."

"He doesn't need to, I'm just fine," Sora frowned.

"Sora, look out!" Rikku sprang past the younger wolf to chomp on the arm of the vampire standing right behind him.

"_Yee-ow_!" Axel howled, dancing around and shaking his arm in an attempt to dislodge her. "You said they wouldn't attack me if I was on their side!"

"I said nothing of the sort," Sora corrected him with a wolfish grin. "Rikku, let him go, he's on our side." The blonde wolf did so with some reluctance.

"You two help out the pack, alright?" Sora told Roxas and Axel, waving his tail and pointing with his nose to make his meaning clear. "I'll go help Leon."

"Be careful," Roxas warned, punching another vampire in the face. Sora was gone before his brother had time to say anything else, bounding over to help his distressed cousin.

Go, stop this show

Choppy words and a sloppy flow

Shotgun opera, lock and load

Cock it back and then watch it go

Mama, help me, I've been cursed

Death is rolling in every verse

Candy paint on his brand-new hearse

Can't contain him, he knows he works

--

Fck, this hurts, I won't lie

Doesn't matter how hard I try

Half the words don't mean a thing

And I know that I won't be satisfied

So why try ignoring him?

Make it a dirt dance floor again

Say your prayers and stomp it out

When they bring that chorus in

Leon was finished. He lay on his side, blood pouring from a long gash just above his eye, his vision blurry and dim, and his left foreleg twisted at an odd angle. Xemnas stood above him, his sword poised to run the wolf through.

"Such a shame," the silver-haired vampire gloated. "It will be so boring around here without you pitiful mutts sneaking around. Oh well." He shrugged in false regret and stabbed forward.

…only to hear the screech of splintering wood as his sword met the library floor. He hauled it free, glaring around him for the lycan. He shouldn't have been able to move with that leg of his…

The vampire came face-to-face with a snarling wolf. This one was brown as well, but younger, and had no scars. His fury-filled blue eyes were fixed on the vampires. Behind him was Leon's unconscious body.

"You… hurt… my… cousin…!" Sora's growl was choked with rage. His entire body trembled. Never had he felt such anger in his entire life. Not when he was abused at the orphanage, not when he'd been kidnapped, not even when he'd first turned into a wolf. But now it rose within him, howling in a familiar way. This was how the hunger had felt…

"You must be the human brat Roxas was so obsessed with," Xemnas looked at him, bored. "I suppose I'll have to kill you, too, then."

"Bastard!" Sora leaped at the vampire, jaws agape. He was easily swatted out of the air by Saïx's spiked club, crashing into a table that had been partially destroyed in the fighting. The lycan popped right back up, now aiming for the blue-haired vamp as well.

Sora was inexperienced. He had never fought vampires before that night, much less two of the oldest and best at the same time. He didn't stand a chance, and everyone knew it.

So it came as rather a shock when Sora's teeth fastened into Saïx's collarbone.

"What the…?" the vampire had been sure that the werewolf had been over there, by Xemnas. How the hell had he gotten over here so fast?

Sora's vision went dark for a moment as Saïx's club smashed him away from the vampire, but cleared in an instant. He had never seen so clearly. He knew where all their weak points were, he knew which way they were going to go before they'd even gone. It was a powerful feeling, and the boy was nearly drunk on it.

Xemnas aimed a horizontal cut at the lycan's head, his eyes fixed on his prey. Under the vampire's astonished gaze, he vanished. Flat-out disappeared.

Claws raked down Xemnas's back, shredding his black coat. He whirled around to find Sora there, triumph lighting his blood-red eyes.

_Red…?_

Saïx rushed to his leader's aid, lashing out with his club in a berserker rage. Sora danced away from him, as fleeting and swift as the wind. He disappeared again, reappearing behind Saïx in mid-leap, catching the vampire's shoulder and sending them both to the floor.

_He isn't disappearing,_ Xemnas realized. _He's simply moving too fast for our eyes to follow!_ The next instant, all coherent thought was driven from the vampire's mind as Wolf Sora pounced on his chest, claws and teeth digging in mercilessly.

"How…?" was all he could manage. Right there on top of him, the wolf shifted and changed. This time, Sora felt no pain or nausea. His body rippled as easily and quickly water.

Xemnas stared in astonishment. The boy was just as scrawny, his eyes just as wide, his hair just as brown and messy. But his eyes were red, his skin far paler, his nails long and claw-like. And most importantly, he kept his wolf form's fangs.

"Half and half," the Sora grinned humorlessly. "And stronger than both."

So said, the teenage boy set about tearing the vampire leader limb from limb, casually and efficiently.

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out

--

I've opened up these scars

I'll make you face this

I've pulled myself so far

I'll make you face this

Now

Not nearly all the vampires were killed that night. As soon as Xemnas had been killed, every wolf in the room turned tail and raced out the door, followed by three vampires. The coven let them leave in victory as they stared around themselves at their destroyed home and wondered what they were supposed to do next.

Meanwhile, Leon's pack reached the farm just as the sun was rising. Leon was being carried across Cloud's back, Cid jointly dragged by Rikku and Paine, and Yuffie borne between the smallest vampires.

At the farm, Riku, Tidus, Wakka, Selphie, Hayner, Aerith, Naminé, and even Pence, Olette, and Kairi were there to greet them. Nobody said anything about Sora's appearance. Instead, everyone got to work taking care of their wounds while Axel and Cloud had a long discussion in Leon's room.

Though not before the two had stood on opposite sides of the room and glared untrustingly at each other for a solid five minutes.

"I should probably explain what's going on, huh?" Axel broke the proverbial ice. He went on to tell the lycan leader about Sora's need for blood and their secret meetings with him and Yuffie, and Roxas's nightly trips to the hospital, finishing off with that day's events.

"…but why is he a vampire?" Leon finally asked once the story had been finished.

"I don't know," Axel shrugged. "Ask him yourself."

"It's got something to do with Larxene." Both men whirled in surprise. Neither had heard Sora's entrance. Roxas stood beside his younger brother in the doorway.

"I only changed after I fought her," Sora continued.

"But she only drank his blood, he didn't drink hers," Roxas put in.

"Tell us what happened, starting with after I left you," Leon ordered.

"Roxas carried me downstairs," Sora answered promptly. Then, after a short pause, "Well, at least we know I still have to follow the alpha's orders. Anyway, halfway down I realized that I had healed it really quickly because of the blood I'd accidentally drank from the vampires I killed.

"Larxene attacked us, and we were totally thrashed, though Naminé was able to escape. She got her fangs in me and drank my blood, but Tidus came in at the last second and shot her up."

"He also shot me," Roxas gestured to the round holes sprayed across the chest of his coat.

"So we all fell in a heap and I tore up Larxene," Sora finished. "And then we ran upstairs to help you."

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

"You tore up Larxene?" Leon looked up sharply. "Sora…"

"…you got her blood in your mouth, idiot!" Axel finished. "And then I suppose you licked all the blood off your fur?" Sora looked stricken. "I thought so. Idiot."

"So you got my blood in you as well," Roxas sighed. Then, inspired, "Sora, clap your hands." Sora gave his brother a strange look, confusion bleeding into fright as a loud noise caused him to jump. Looking down, he gazed at his hands, confused. They were palm-to-palm in front of him as if he had just…

"Well, looks like you have to obey your creator, too," Roxas sounded smug. At everyone's curious look, he elaborated. "See, vampires have to do whatever the one who bit them and made them a vampire says."

"I'll show you," Axel announced. "Roxas…" He was cut off as the small blond tackled his midriff, sending both of them tumbling to the floor.

"Never again," Roxas growled. "Not after last time."

"What happened last time?" Sora asked.

"I told him to put on a dress and…" the rest of Axel's explanation was muffled by Roxas's hand clapped over his mouth.

"ANYWAY!" he shouted, his face cherry red. "Why aren't you dead, Sora? No one survives a bite from both species."

"I'm half and half, like I told Xemnas," Sora blinked. He hadn't even realized it himself until he said it aloud, but it made sense. "My mom was a vamp and my dad was a lycan, so I'm a mix of both."

"Your eye…" Leon pointed, speechless. As he watched, the redness slowly bled from his cousin's right eye, leaving behind its natural blue color. The other one stayed red.

"My claws are gone, too," Sora noted, holding up his hands. "I guess it was a kind of high from having so much vampire blood in me."

"Sora, clap your hands."

_Bang_.

"Roxas, stop _doing_ that!" Sora protested, shaking his sore hands. "You're making me scare myself!"

"Just making sure," Roxas grinned, pleased with the control he now had over his little brother. Oh, he would use this…

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out, digging deeper

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

Just to throw it away

I bleed it out

I bleed it out

I bleed it out

_(A/N: Don't really like this one for the same reasons as the last one… anyway, 'Bleed it Out' belongs to Linkin Park, Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix and Disney. It's taking a little longer than I thought to finish. The next chapter is probably the last, though.)_


	14. Moon's Melody

(A/N: Am I the only one who thought this

6

_(A/N: Last chapter. To assuage any fears, there will be a sequel coming up called Serenade of Sunlight, so don't worry. There's going to be pairings in the sequel since there weren't any in here, so let me know what you want to see! (Just in case it influences your opinion: I DO NOT write lemons and rarely even limes, really, just lots of fluff n stuff.) Can anyone guess who wrote the moon's melody at the end? Please let me know what you think, and thank you for reading!)_

It was several days later when Sora finally decided to go back into town. He had spent the last few days at the farm, feverishly working on finishing the house's new annex. Cloud and Leon made sure to keep him away from any and all power tools, but didn't interfere. He was twice as strong and fast as any of the other lycans, and the annex was finished in no time.

But one day, Sora decided to go down to Roxas's house. His brother and Axel were living in the annex with him since they had left the coven, having fun bossing the younger boy around. Sora went for a run, refusing to let any of them go with him, and easily outdistancing Roxas when he insisted on coming, too.

The boy found his way to the old coven without a problem. His nose was just as good as a wolf's even when he was human now. For a while, Sora stood in front of the house, staring at the broken windows that had never been fixed. The scent of vampires was stale.

Blankly, he stepped forward and pushed open the front door. The inside of the house was blackened, the walls scorched. Sora frowned at this. Their pack hadn't set any fires that night. Why did the house look like it had been burned?

In addition, it was empty. Not a single vampire lurked in the rooms. Sora climbed up two flights of stairs until he came to the hallway where they had fought. The walls were perforated like Swiss cheese with bullet holes, and the floorboards were splashed with irregular patches of dark color.

Sora sniffed the air, choking a little on the still-lingering reek of smoke. But under the smoke-smell, something just as unpleasant hid…

There was still a vampire in the house.

Sora turned slowly, smiling slightly to show his fangs threateningly. Behind him, framed in the doorway of the library where they had fought was a familiar vampire with X-shaped scars and blue hair.

"You burnt your own coven," Sora noted.

"Believe it or not, we are merciful to our own kind," Saïx responded. "I doubt you realize exactly how much it hurts to be dismembered and still live. We put them out of their misery."

"And why are you still here? I see that your coven has left, for whatever reason," Sora cocked his head.

"Rest assured, we have not given up. This town is still ours. We have merely relocated to a new hideout, seeing as the owner of this house has defected."

"That answer was almost too defensive."

"…"

"Whatever," Sora shrugged and rolled his neck, loosening up. "You're still gonna die." He took a step forward, disappearing mid-step to reappear behind Saïx, one arm wrapped around his neck in a headlock. He leaned down, mouth open, but the vampire's next words stopped him short.

They were a few simple words. They wouldn't have meant anything under different circumstances. But those few words pierced Sora like shards of ice, freezing him in place just long enough for Saïx to slip from his grasp. The brunet merely stood and let him leave.

It was the least he could do for being told that.

--

Roxas woke the next day just before dawn. Contrary to popular belief, vampires do sleep, and Roxas was a teenage vampire, which meant that he slept even more than the others. It got somewhat annoying after a few years. Not to mention that recently he had been forced to change from a nocturnal schedule to a diurnal one.

So that was how Roxas found himself awake before any of the other lycans in the house, and even before Axel. The boy looked at his friend and smiled slightly. Axel had had no trouble at all switching nighttime hours for daylight ones.

The blond vamp stood, stretched, and made his silent way to the kitchen to see if Axel had drunk all the stolen blood yet. He paused as he passed the door to Sora's new bedroom, but kept going. His brother had been acting strange lately. Maybe after a good night's sleep he would wake up in a better mood.

Once in the kitchen, Roxas was irked to find that Axel had in fact drunk all their blood. The blond grumbled to himself and exited the farmhouse, still in his pajamas. By the time the sun was halfway up, Roxas had returned, having hunted down and drained two squirrels and a rabbit before he was full. They didn't taste as good as human blood, and they wouldn't hold him for as long, but it was still good in a pinch.

_Dawn's early enough,_ Roxas decided. _If I have to wake up this early, so does Sora._ He padded to his younger brother's room and rapped on the door with his knuckles.

"Hey, Sora, wake up!" he called. A few moments passed. "Sora, I said wake up and get out here already!" Still no sounds came from behind the door. This was strange. Sora was bound to do whatever Roxas told him as his fledgling. So why wasn't he waking up and getting out here?

Roxas decided that he was probably still asleep and hadn't heard him. The blond jiggled the handle, only to find that it was locked. Frowning in annoyance, he went back to his and Axel's room.

"Hey, wake up, lazy," he shook his friend. "I need you to melt something for me."

"What?" Axel groaned. "It's too early, Rox."

"Shut up and come with me," Roxas ordered. "The sooner you melt it, the sooner you can go back to sleep."

"Alright, alright," the redhead sat up, yawning so widely that his jaw creaked. "I'm up." He stood and groggily followed his younger friend to Sora's room, rubbing his eyes.

"I want you to melt the lock," Roxas said, pointing.

"It locked already?"

"Yeah."

"Then why don't you just use the damn key?" Axel moaned, reaching up. He groped around on the lintel for a moment before returning with a hooked length of metal that was flattened on one side.

"I forgot about it," Roxas blushed.

"You're too short to reach it, aren't you?" a grin slowly spread across Axel's face.

"No! I just forgot!" Roxas denied.

"Sure you did, shorty," Axel chuckled, sticking the key into the lock and opening it. By now he was fully awake and curious. Sora never locked his door, so why had he this time?

"Sora…" Roxas began, barging past Axel into the room. He stopped dead.

The bed was made. The room was completely empty of everything except the few pieces of furniture they had bought for it. No clothes, no belongings, but most importantly:

No Sora.

The only thing that showed someone had been living here not a few hours previously was an envelope resting on the windowsill where Roxas could clearly see it from the door. On the outside were the words: _To my pack and my mini-coven_.

"Oh yeah, that's Sora alright," Axel chuckled, picking up the envelope. "'Mini-coven'! Psh." Roxas didn't laugh. He snatched the envelope from his friend's hand and rushed out of the room and up the stairs at a speed Sora would have been proud of.

Ten minutes later, the werewolf pack and two vampires met in the barn (the only place big enough for all of them to gather at once). Leon opened the envelope and scanned the note inside, his eyes growing wider with each line. Wordlessly, he passed it to Roxas, who read it aloud in a trembling voice.

"_Dear everyone,_

_I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real? Or not? I don't know what's happening to me. I hate the smell of vampires, but I am one. I can't stand the smell of werewolves, but I'm one of those, too. Both parts of me hate humans. I can't stay here any more or I'll snap and then I really will kill something. I met Saïx the other day. He helped me realize what I need to do._

'_The light and the lion met in the twilight,' he said. I'm going to find out about them, to find out who— _what—_I am. Don't follow me. I already miss you all._

_ Sora_

_P.S. Tell Riku and the others I'm sorry._

_Goodbye."_

Deafening silence met the end of his recitation. Roxas could barely choke out the last word.

"What the hell does that mean?" Yuffie demanded. "What light? What lion? What twilight? What the hell did that bloodsucking parasite _tell_ him?!"

"His name is Sora Hikari," Leon seemed to be talking to himself. "Sora means sky in Japanese. Hikari means light. Leon is another way of saying lion."

"So the light met the lion means his dad, Robert Hikari, met his mom, Marie Leonhart, at twilight?" Rikku worked it out as she said it. "How does that help at all?"

"It must have meant something to Sora," Yuna pointed out.

"He's really gone," Roxas sat down on a nearby bale of hay, his legs suddenly as useless as cooked spaghetti. "For good this time."

"No!" Rikku shouted. In a heartbeat, she, Yuna, Paine, and Yuffie had all become wolves and charged out of the barn door, intent on hunting Sora down and dragging him back if need be. Everyone present knew they'd never catch him. They'd never track him.

They'd never see him again.

--

A lone wolf stood on the top of a hill in a forest lit by moonlight. He sat on a tree stump, tired from his long day of running and the deer he had managed to hunt on his own.

The wolf tipped back his muzzle and gazed at the climbing moon with mismatched eyes, flicking his fluffy tail thoughtfully. After a moment, he opened his jaws slightly and began to howl, hesitantly at first, but growing in confidence and beauty the longer he held it. It rose and fell with a rhythm rarely known to wolves and rang with an emotion unknown to most creatures of the wild.

To anyone with the right ears, it was a song.

"_Once a crescent, once a coin_

_Dance with silvery grace_

_Once a half and once a whole_

_Always a different face_

_Are you the one who pulls the tides?_

_Is what I heard the truth?_

_Are you the one who pulls the tides?_

_Or do the tides pull you?_

_Is it okay to be the moon_

_And look but never touch?_

_To change and ever stay the same_

_And fall into a rut?_

_Once a crescent, once a coin_

_Dance with silvery grace_

_Once a half and once a whole_

_Always a different face_

_Questions spin like diamond stars_

_Is what you show us who you are?_

_Once a crescent, once a coin_

_Dance with silvery grace_

_Once a half and once a whole_

_Always a different face_

_I'll show you what you want to see_

_I'll be the moon and not be me_

_I'll mimic the light from the burning sun_

_And maybe that's what I'll become_

_Questions spin like diamond stars_

_Is what you show us who you are?_

_Once a crescent, once a coin_

_Dance with silvery grace_

_Once a half and once a whole_

_Always a different_

_Dance with silvery grace_

_Once a half and once a whole_

_Always a different face_

_Crescent, coin, half, whole_

_Change your face and hide your soul."_


End file.
